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World has 'until end of today' to stop another pandemic as major health warning issued
With the world already counting the cost of the last global pandemic, another one is already on the horizon — and humanity doesn't have long to try and sort things out
Scientists have worked out that humanity has until the end of today (December 13) to stop another pandemic. New research found it takes around two weeks for pandemics to start to take hold.
Figures have found the exact moment when animal-based illnesses make their way to humans, essentially stopping any chance to containing the disease. Despite the UK suffering from a superflu, Britain could be battered from its next major worldwide illness in just a matter of weeks.
The stark figures came with an urgent warning that the disease can be halted within 10 days of the first signs of illness. However, as the warning was issued at the beginning of this month, humans have a mammoth task to try and contain the latest strain of potentially dangerous conditions.
Currently, bird flu is wreaking havoc on our wildlife, as the H5N1 pandemic spreads. But according to Nature, killing infected birds within 10 days can be enough time to stop the outbreak from spreading any further significant distances.
A study, carried out on the interactions of around 10,000 people in a poultry-farming area of southern India, found that by culling the birds, the risk of human-to-human transmissions dropped significantly. By waiting to day 20, it is likely to have already jumped to farmers.
The study, published on the BharatSim platform on December 3, worked alongside schools, homes and workplaces, looking at how quickly contact-to-contact could become an issue. If a bird flu outbreak was to start in the area, the study served as a reconstruction of how a pandemic could begin from animals to people.
Luckily, H5N1 has remained mostly confined to birds, but some human cases have been recorded, with high death rates. Roughly 30% of people who contract the disease eventually die of the disease, but case numbers are incredibly low.
Epidemiologist Gautam Menon said of the results: "If you can detect and respond early, you can stop an outbreak before it takes off among humans." He added that waiting for a total of ten confirmed cases, instead of the recommended two, is the same as doing nothing at all.
There are reasonably good systems in place to stop the spread of poultry-related diseases, but in other birds such as ducks there is very little protection. However, Menon said that there are some critical gaps in our understanding of how the infections are transferred.
"We don’t have those answers, and the model assumes that human infection risk is proportional to the level of infection in birds, and that infected birds can be identified through routine surveillance or outbreak investigations," Menon explained. "So the basic approach — using agent-based modeling with realistic contact networks — can incorporate new data on asymptomatic transmission once it becomes available."
The next step is now to work out where added surveillance could be, and constantly monitoring the number of different birds to see whether populations are being hit. Experts have said the key is to keep an eye on numbers so that diseases can be monitored properly, as well as tagging birds.
Taej Mundkur from the International Waterbird Census added that a "comprehensive ongoing programme" is needed to try and stop bird flu in its tracks. It comes as research into bird flu has only been limited to very few species.
Daily Star Sunday
With the world already counting the cost of the last global pandemic, another one is already on the horizon — and humanity doesn't have long to try and sort things out
Scientists have worked out that humanity has until the end of today (December 13) to stop another pandemic. New research found it takes around two weeks for pandemics to start to take hold.
Figures have found the exact moment when animal-based illnesses make their way to humans, essentially stopping any chance to containing the disease. Despite the UK suffering from a superflu, Britain could be battered from its next major worldwide illness in just a matter of weeks.
The stark figures came with an urgent warning that the disease can be halted within 10 days of the first signs of illness. However, as the warning was issued at the beginning of this month, humans have a mammoth task to try and contain the latest strain of potentially dangerous conditions.
Currently, bird flu is wreaking havoc on our wildlife, as the H5N1 pandemic spreads. But according to Nature, killing infected birds within 10 days can be enough time to stop the outbreak from spreading any further significant distances.
A study, carried out on the interactions of around 10,000 people in a poultry-farming area of southern India, found that by culling the birds, the risk of human-to-human transmissions dropped significantly. By waiting to day 20, it is likely to have already jumped to farmers.
The study, published on the BharatSim platform on December 3, worked alongside schools, homes and workplaces, looking at how quickly contact-to-contact could become an issue. If a bird flu outbreak was to start in the area, the study served as a reconstruction of how a pandemic could begin from animals to people.
Luckily, H5N1 has remained mostly confined to birds, but some human cases have been recorded, with high death rates. Roughly 30% of people who contract the disease eventually die of the disease, but case numbers are incredibly low.
Epidemiologist Gautam Menon said of the results: "If you can detect and respond early, you can stop an outbreak before it takes off among humans." He added that waiting for a total of ten confirmed cases, instead of the recommended two, is the same as doing nothing at all.
There are reasonably good systems in place to stop the spread of poultry-related diseases, but in other birds such as ducks there is very little protection. However, Menon said that there are some critical gaps in our understanding of how the infections are transferred.
"We don’t have those answers, and the model assumes that human infection risk is proportional to the level of infection in birds, and that infected birds can be identified through routine surveillance or outbreak investigations," Menon explained. "So the basic approach — using agent-based modeling with realistic contact networks — can incorporate new data on asymptomatic transmission once it becomes available."
The next step is now to work out where added surveillance could be, and constantly monitoring the number of different birds to see whether populations are being hit. Experts have said the key is to keep an eye on numbers so that diseases can be monitored properly, as well as tagging birds.
Taej Mundkur from the International Waterbird Census added that a "comprehensive ongoing programme" is needed to try and stop bird flu in its tracks. It comes as research into bird flu has only been limited to very few species.
Daily Star Sunday