The nature and likelihood of the next pandemic presents many challenges to governments and health organisations, as it could be an unknown pathogen that the world is ill-equipped to contain. The risks associated with such a pandemic has secondary effects as it not only affects human health, but also causes severe disruptions in economic, political, and social areas.
In 2017, scientists and public health organizations warned that the next global pandemic is imminent, and that no country is prepared to confront the coming waves of illness. If the next pandemic is anything like the 1918 Spanish Flu that killed 30 million people in six months, the global population will face unprecedented uncertainty. There is some indication that the next flu outbreak could involve the H7N9 strain, an influenza virus that is not yet highly contagious. H7N9 is a type of avian influenza; the first cases in humans began appearing 2013 in China. This particular strain of influenza has mainly spread through poultry to humans. There are growing numbers of reported cases that are expected to be a result of human-to-human contact. Scientists hypothesize that the longer the virus circulates in humans who have been infected with H7N9 , the potential exists for the strain to spread to larger populations.
At present, the Centers for Disease Control in the United States rate H7N9 as having a high likelihood of evolving into a wide-spread pandemic. Based on H7N9 cases in China, scientists know that 88 percent of those diagnosed developed pneumonia, and 41 percent of these patients died. H7N9 will not remain contained within China; as it adapts to the human body, H7N9 has the potential to possibly infect millions of people globally. The questions that remain are when will H7N9 develop these capabilities, how quickly the virus will spread, and to what degree will it contribute to social instability?
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
