We don’t get to choose whether or not we get another pandemic.
With news that a B.C. teenager was in critical condition in hospital with a case of avian flu breaking last week, there is obvious concern that we could be going back down a not-so-old and far-too-familiar road.
Fears about a pandemic caused by H5N1 avian flu have been around since the first human cases in the late 1990s.
There are a few important things to note.
First, at present the risk is extremely low. This is not a case where a pandemic is imminent, or even a significant outbreak or threat to a large number of farm workers.
Second, unlike with COVID-19, we can make vaccines for flu strains relatively rapidly – in just three to six months we can mass-produce plenty of it, in the event there is a pandemic.
What could turn this virus, currently circulating in wild birds, infecting local flocks, and making its way into American dairy cattle, turn into a serious threat?
The main issue would be if the virus manages to infect a human who also has a common, ordinary seasonal flu virus.
When a cell is infected by two different flu viruses, something called reassortment can occur. New viruses are created that have traits from each parent virus. In the worst case scenario, the new virus would be as virulent and dangerous to humans as avian flu, and as transmissible as a seasonal flu – but that is not guaranteed or even likely.
We do not, at this point, need to be stockpiling toilet paper or setting up work-from-home spaces again.
Our health authorities and governments can do a few things to help stave off this worst-case scenario. They can stockpile more vaccines against H5N1 than we currently do, just in case we need to suddenly vaccinate farm and frontline health-care workers. They can expand our ability to quickly make vaccines – something we were supposed to be doing after COVID in the first place.
And all of us can get vaccinated against the seasonal flu, and, yes, remember to wash our hands and cough into our elbows and stay home when sick. The fewer people who have the ordinary flu, the lower the risk of a reassortment event, and the lower the risk of another pandemic taking off.
– M.C.
