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by Kevin MillerNot If You Get Involved to Help Fight it!
It’s only been a year since SARS grabbed international headlines as a contender for the next global pandemic. But SARS has already been replaced by yet another imminent health threat: avian influenza, also known as “bird flu.”
At present, spread of this disease from birds to humans is extremely rare, and human-to-human transmission rarer still. However, with a mortality rate that’s fourteen times as high as SARS and the potential to mutate faster than we can devise vaccines to prevent it, many fear that if bird flu ever does mutate into a truly human-based disease, we could finally be facing the worldwide killer that health officials have warned us about and science fiction writers have anticipated for years.
Remain Calm
There’s no need to panic yet though. Global health authorities like the World Health Organization (WHO), the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and Health Canada are united in this opinion. While human cases of avian influenza prove fatal nearly 70 percent of the time, only thirty-four such cases have been recorded worldwide since 1998.
When one considers how many millions of poultry are raised, slaughtered, and packaged around the world each year and the thousands of people who are involved in this process, such numbers hardly seem to signal a cause for alarm.
Meanwhile, extensive measures have been taken to control the spread of the disease. Thousands of infected and exposed birds have been slaughtered. Restrictions have been placed on the transport of poultry in and out of infected areas. Better hygiene standards are being enforced throughout the poultry processing industry and extensive testing of poultry is being conducted worldwide. These and other measures should give us confidence that the possibility of the disease spreading from birds to humans is shrinking all the time. And yet, with more birds infected now than ever, experts warn that the potential for this seemingly small problem to explode into something much larger still exists.
A Worst-Case Scenario
As long as the bird flu virus stays pretty much as it is, we don’t have much to worry about. That’s the problem with viruses though; they have a propensity for change. In a worst-case scenario, someone with human influenza might be exposed to avian influenza and genetic mixing or an “antigenic shift” may result. This would bring the two viruses together to create a new strain of the influenza virus that could pass easily between humans. Since the virus would be completely new, we would have no immunity to it and no vaccines to prevent its spread. Even with the best science available, it would still take four to six months to develop a new vaccine. By that time, there’s no telling what sort of effect the virus could have. Existing drugs could mediate some of the symptoms. But history contains many examples - some as recent as forty years ago - of what a disease like this can do if its progress remains unchecked.
However, as mentioned above, major efforts are underway to prevent exactly this scenario from developing. In addition to the measures described above, high-risk groups, such as poultry workers, are being urged to get influenza vaccinations. This will reduce the risk of someone who is exposed to avian influenza becoming infected with both the avian and human viruses at the same time, thus decreasing opportunities for antigenic shift to occur. So, to all appearances, authorities are doing everything they can to prevent this situation from turning into a global crisis. Only time will tell if their efforts are extensive enough or if they were implemented soon enough.
Don’t Give in to Fear
As with any global crisis, it’s always tempting to fix our eyes on the situation, to adopt an attitude of anxiety or fear. That’s typical behavior for people who live in a society that thrives on bad news, on doom and gloom. But what does it really accomplish?
I think it’s always a better idea to lift our eyes above our present situation - which is always changing - and fix them on the One who never changes: God. God doesn’t cause diseases like SARS or bird flu, but he is in the business of healing them. Therefore, when confronted with news like this, our first response should be to pray. We can pray for the scientists and health professionals who are working to understand and control the disease. We can pray for those afflicted with the disease and for their families. We can pray that God would prevent the disease from spreading any farther than it has. We can pray for the poultry producers who are losing their livelihoods over this issue. We can ask God if there’s anything we can do to help solve the problem, and, should the disease spread, we can pray that God would protect our loved ones from succumbing to it.
Not many of us are doctors or scientists, but that does not mean we are powerless. In fact, if we pray believing that God will answer our cry, we may have more power to solve this problem than anyone.
For more information on avian influenza, please visit the following web sites:
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Kevin Miller is a freelance writer, editor, and educator from Abbotsford, BC, Canada. Over the past several years, he has written, co-written and contributed to 26 books, both fiction and non-fiction. He has also written dozens of articles for web sites, magazines and newspapers, including Faith Today, BC Christian News and Maranatha News. Learn more about Kevin by clicking here to visit his website.