Mexico: Swine flu epicentre
Swine flu worries world health officials
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Friday, 08, May 2009 03:03
The world is coming to terms with the threat of a new pandemic. But amid panicky actions across the planet, scientists are struggling to understand where it came from - and where it's heading.
Its origins are far from clear. It's now been established swine flu's sub-category is H1N1 - the same as the old Spanish influenza and seasonal flu. That might be good news for pensioners, whose immune systems might hold some memory of this. But it doesn't give much immediate help to working out where it came from.
The first recorded case was reported on April 2nd, when five-year-old Edgar Hernandez became 'patient zero' in the small village of La Gloria in Mexico's Veracruz state.
Edgar's fine now - he says ice-cream helped his recovery - but a bout of flu in the area followed as doctors realised a new form of flu was emerging.
Television cameras flocked to film the large pig farm nearby. Slowly public awareness increased. By the end of the month, as the world's facemask sector lifted its recessionary blues in a single stroke, concern over swine flu had reached its current levels.
Crisis in the Americas
"This is obviously a cause for concern and requires a heightened state of alert. But it is not a cause for alarm," US president Barack Obama intoned on April 27th. His department of health and human services had declared a public health emergency as a "precautionary tool". The emphasis was on calming, as much as anything else - a recurring theme for governments in the coming days.
But with a child in Texas dying of swine flu just days later, there was only so much Mr Obama could do to keep public worries under control.
Mexico, the epicentre, was confronted with its own dilemmas. For some reason swine flu is proving much more severe there than anywhere else. The death toll had already reached 159 by April 29th, Mexican authorities claimed.
"We don't understand why, yet, the disease in Mexico seems to be more severe," Britain's chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson said on May 7th. He suggested it may simply be there have been a greater number of undetected cases there. In any event, his tentativeness speaks volumes.
In any case, officials ordered a five-day shutdown beginning on May 1st in a bid to contain the virus' spread. Government offices and private businesses not vital to the country's economy were ordered shut. President Felipe Calderon didn't mince his words. "There is no safer place than your own home to avoid being affected with the flu virus," he said.
Global reactions
As the first cases of swine flu were reported outside the Americas, worries about the possibility of a global pandemic increased. Human-to-human transmission has, so far, not been seen on the kind of scale needed for a pandemic. But the World Health Organisation (WHO) increased its flu alert to phase five on April 30th, warning a global pandemic is "imminent".
Chief Margaret Chan told the world: "All countries should immediately now activate their pandemic preparedness plans."
Most countries responded in the way Britain has - by heightening its containment efforts and investing now for the winter, when swine flu is likely to hit hardest.
But there have been others whose responses have been somewhat more questionable. Afghanistan, for example, ordered all its pigs to be quarantined. As the country only has one - in the zoo in Kabul - the policy was not difficult to implement.
Egypt was slightly more ambitious, ordering a cull of all its pigs - every last one. The WHO made clear this move wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference to the swine flu risk and angry protestors took to the streets in Cairo. It didn't help that the vast majority of pigs in Egypt are owned by the Coptic Christians, a minority making up about ten per cent of the population.
In China, treatment of the swine flu problem has ruffled some Mexican feathers. After quarantining around 70 Mexicans, despite their being just one case of the virus there, a plane was chartered to bring the confined group back to South America on May 5th.
Calderon was unimpressed. "Some countries and places are taking repressive and discriminatory measures because of ignorance and disinformation," he complained. "There are always people who are seizing on this pretext to assault Mexicans."
After its five-day shutdown Mexican officials are claiming they now have the virus under control. It seems far too early for that to be credible, however. With over 1,500 cases now confirmed worldwide, this is one crisis which is only just beginning.
Dr Chan of the WHO is keen to point out that even if swine flu is raised to phase six, that would only be a reflection of its geographical spread, not its severity.
That doesn't stop her making statements which are, undeniably, a little concerning. She told the Financial Times: "If it's going to happen, it would be the biggest of all outbreaks the world has faced in the 21st century."
Alex Stevenson