From outbreaks to full pandemic, a perspective
May 7, 2007 by Grace Ibay
Filed under Diseases & Conditions
Right now we are at alert level 3 for a pandemic – a World Health Oganization phase for “no or very limited human-to-human (H2H) transmission”.
And we’ve been at this alert since late 2005. Whew. That’s really good news.
The next alert level is “evidence of increased human-to-human transmission” which means the H5N1 has mutated to a form easily transmit between humans.
Avian Flu Diary wrote a perspective on how rapidly events and alerts could escalate if and when the H5N1 virus starts mutating.
Once large clusters are noticed, it may take some time to confirm that they are, indeed, the result of H2H transmission. There will be attempts to contain the spread, using quarantines and antivirals. This would be a time of uncertainty. We will have days, perhaps weeks, where we won’t know if that is successful.
If that happens, we honestly don’t know how long it will take to go from our current phase III, to phase VI, a full blown pandemic.
How long before a pandemic blows up? It probably won’t take months. With the 1918 Spanish flu, it only took 5 months for the virus to spread across the globe. These days with a “highly mobile society” don’t count on it being that long.
Read on to find out FLA_Medic’s perspective on what may happen next and how you can prepare for it.
Tags: bird flu, pandemic, virus, H5N1, human-to-human, transmission
