Swine flu — what's the big deal?

Flu has killed millions of people in the last century. It mutates every year, keeping science labs all over the world busy playing catch-up with the vaccine, especially for the young and old (that is, the weaker of us).

The vaccine you’ll be getting next winter is currently being synthesized based on the flu making its way here from the Pacific rim and, in turn, the Europeans are making theirs based on what’s happening in California. Russia and China are making theirs based on samples taken from Europe, Australia is making theirs based on samples taken from China, and so on. Each year the scientists follow this merry-go-round, sometimes with variations north and south, but usually predictive and preventative.

And then, there’s the bird flu and, now, the swine flu. These are anomalies, one-offs, which pop up with amazing speed, jump from animals to humans and, bingo, find a naked host to prey on. We have no antibodies to fight off these killer flu viruses.

Can our bodies make them, quickly enough? Sure, if we’re fit and in good health. But the sick, weak, infirm and very young have immune systems that take too long to fight the battle internally and, sometimes, lose out. Modern medicine has, thankfully, developed a whole arsenal of medicines to help in the fight, but with swiftly evolving new flu viruses, sometimes even modern science loses out to the power of microbes.

    u    u    u

But with the flu, we have two very strong medicines that are pretty much omnipotent: Tamiflu by Roche and Relenza by GlaxoSmithKline (there are others from smaller but capable companies).

A few years ago there was a minor scandal when those two giant drug companies lobbied the U.S. government and the European governments to stockpile Tamiflu and Relenza in huge quantities. Using the bird flu scare as leverage, the U.S. and U.K. governments bought many millions of dollars worth of the medicine at deep discount, $19 for a full treatment instead of $50 for you and me.

How much did they buy? The United States is reported to have bought 50 million doses and the United Kingdom about 22 million doses. And yes, it was a profit windfall for those two drug companies.

Meanwhile, the U.K. told the European Union that it was proportionately reducing its medical contribution to the EU budget because it had the foresight to buy these medicines, just in case. The EU got angry, heads rolled, and the years passed. Now, of course, the U.K. looks wise and the EU is scrambling to find sufficient stocks. One thing is for sure, Roche and GlaxoSmithKline are not selling it at $19 a dose any more.

    u    u    u

So, why all the scare over this swine flu? After all, tens of thousands of people die from the flu each year and the swine flu is hardly killing large swaths of the population. In the last administration, they would have waited until things got bad, trotted out the stockpiled medicine and managed the crisis. This administration doesn’t want a crisis (not another!) and, besides, there’s one terrible thing about this swine flu — it is moving very quickly, faster than ever seen before. The gestation period is lightning-quick, the fever comes on like an express train, often in just hours and, worse of all, the aviation industry is the main carrier. No one wants to shut that down again. In a crisis, if the epidemic took hold, it would have to be.

In the mid-1980s, I was at the World Health Organization offices on a tour. I had just finished a global aviation project. At a desk, a scientist was studying a map of the flight routes across the United States that I was very familiar with. I asked why he was studying a flight route map.

He looked up, astonished. “This isn’t a flight route map, this is the flu virus outbreak patterns for the USA last month.�

And that lead to the discovery that, at altitude temperatures of -35 degrees, the old ejection toilets were freeze-drying contaminated human waste and merrily seeding the population below with the virus which could, easily, survive the thaw. Today’s planes store it inside, but they carry that waste and sick humans all over the globe. In short, we’re moving the virus faster, jet travel faster.

    u    u    u

So, what’s the panic? Simply this: This flu is moving fast, it has the nasty habit of breeding quickly, infecting quicker and spreading with alarming speed. If it gets ahead of the authorities, if it were to become a crisis, there simply is not enough stockpiled medicine to cope and, what’s worse, the economy would take another hit. Perhaps a depressing one.

Every doctor will tell you prevention is better than cure. Levees are better than last-minute sand bags, an apple a day, and so on. The president and his team may sound like they are scare-mongering, but they are not. They are engaged in realistic, cheaper, prevention rather than allowing a crisis to take hold — one that could break an already fragile economic back. Similarly, the UK seems to be in pretty good shape.

Meanwhile, Germany has made an appeal to its congress for funding to begin to buy Tamiflu and Relenza in bulk. Expensive, last-minute sandbags are better than nothing, but it is always better to plan ahead and take action sooner rather than later.

Peter Riva, formerly of Amenia Union, lives in New Mexico.