The world has had some close calls in the past few years, says Richard Webby of St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital in Mem-phis. In 1997, a bird flu in Hong Kong jumped to people, killing six. But the virus never developed the ability to pass easily from person to person, Webby said.
Hong Kong authorities slaughtered 1.4 million chickens to end the threat.
Just this year, authorities became alarmed when a father and son in Hong Kong were hospitalized because of a bird flu virus, and when flu virus infected some workers in the Netherlands who had slaughtered infected chickens. The Netherlands outbreak was contained by anti-flu drugs and fast vaccination, and slaughter of the poultry, Webby said.
Scientists have been noticing a lot of flu virus in chickens and pigs globally, and a lot of variety in the strains, which is worrisome, Webby said. It's impractical to develop vaccines against all the animal strains in case they jump to humans, and there's no reliable way to identify the most hazardous ones, he said.
When the next pandemic shows up, experts say, it will find a population with many more vulnerable people like the elderly, infirm and those with weakened natural defenses than were living 35 years ago. It will also find a trimmed-down hospital system with fewer beds to handle a surge of patients. And while today's anti-flu drugs will probably attack the new strain, that's not yet clear. Supplies of the drugs and vaccines would be strained.
But still, with the improvements in health care since the last pandemic, might the next one be less serious?
"I want to believe that," Poland said, "but we won't know until it happens."
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