Avain Flu in Canada

The reader who thinks the news can be delivered untouched by human hands and uncorrupted by human minds is living in a state of vincible ignorance.

Thomas Griffith

There is a crisis looming in Canada, a crisis that may very well be the difference between life and death.

Avian flu is spreading around the world and has the potential to kill millions of people. Just to make matters more frightening, it has just been discovered that the 1918 Spanish Flu was also avian in origin. The Spanish Flu, thought to be the mostly deadly pandemic in human history, ravaged the planet. In a matter of months, this flu killed approximately 25 million people worldwide. Some estimates put the total killed as high as 100 million people; it spanned the globe and very few people were spared. Twenty percent of the world population suffered its affects to some extent and 500,000 to 675,000 died in the United States alone.

Many countries, states and cities attempted to impose quarantines. In many countries, theatres, dance halls, churches and other public gathering places were shut down for over a year. Some communities even placed armed guards to stop travelers. Even so, the socio-economic impact was horrendous with so many people sick that everyday life was brought to a standstill. Stores were closed or people were forced to place orders from outside and there are even reports that there were not enough health care workers, due to their own ill health, to look after the victims of the flu. Mass graves were dug by steam shovel and bodies buried without coffins in many places because there were not enough able-bodied gravediggers to inter the dead.

Beware, the next great pandemic is coming!

Give me a break.

We have all seen these reports in the media - the “beware” warnings, the doom and gloom scenarios, the sky is falling. These are great for grabbing attention and selling papers and, apparently, for unnecessarily scaring the heck out of people.

Let’s take a look at the Spanish Flu outbreak, the one they are all comparing to the most recent avian flu.

Although the Spanish Flu was undoubtedly one of the worst pandemics to actually affect the modern world, it does have to be put in context. As some of you may, or may not, know there was a little known event happening in 1918 called World War One. This little known war may have had a slight affect on the flu.

The fact that it is commonly called the Spanish Flu actually has to do with the war. When the outbreak first occurred, there was more coverage in the Spanish press than anywhere else due to Spain not being involved in the war, ergo, they were not suffering from wartime censorship. Unlike today, public officials also tried to prevent panic by referring to it as “only the flu” or “the grippe”.

The War and the flu may be intricately linked in many ways. It is believed that the flu may have contributed to the end of the war as many countries were suffering the domestic effects of this illness as well as militarily. In fact, more American soldiers died from the flu than from the war itself.

We also have to keep in mind the dreadful conditions the soldiers were enduring at the time. Trench warfare had itself taken a toll on soldiers. Living in cold, damp conditions, soldiers were exposed to a variety of viral and bacteriological conditions, not to mention the use of chemical weapons and the effects they had on their immune system. This could account for the nearly 22% mortality rate suffered within the Indian Army compared to 5% of the general population. Overall, it is estimated that between 2.5% and 5% of the world population died. Interestingly enough, Japan only had a 0.425% mortality rate, much lower than nearly all other Asian countries.

The war also had another affect. A product known as Bayer Aspirin was just hitting the market in the United States at the time. With Bayer being German, many people distrusted the drug and even thought it might be a form of germ warfare. This was even suggested by US government officials.

The reality is the next pandemic may have already happened and we just didn’t notice.

Our technology and medical advances have contributed greatly to our increase in life expectancy. A large part of this is due to the capability of being able to treat many diseases, which at one time killed many people. Measles was once a very deadly disease but with modern treatments it is considered more a nuisance than anything else.

Comparing the Spanish Flu pandemic to modern flu outbreaks is like comparing them to Bubonic Plague. The Spanish Flu was almost 100 years ago and, I don’t know if you noticed, things have changed a little since then.

When the Spanish Flu broke out it spread around the world with little notice initially. In those days, there was no World Health Organization to monitor such things. Look at how quickly they had a handle on the current avian flu. Let’s keep in mind that in the same amount of time that the WHO has been tracking the avian flu, the Spanish Flu had killed millions of people. To date, the latest flu has killed about 60 people after two years.

Medical science has also progressed in the identification of disease. In 1918, doctors thought bacteria were the cause of the flu. Much valuable time and resources went into attempting to treat the wrong thing. The belief was that a vaccine against these bacteria would help cure it when, in fact, it was only one of many causes of the secondary pneumonia with which the epidemic was associated.

Which brings us to medicine. The majority of deaths caused by the Spanish Flu were from secondary causes not the flu itself. Pneumonia was one of the major ones, fever another. Given the prevalence of antibiotics to treat the pneumonia and the ability to just go to the corner store and pick up some Aspirin, or some generic version of it, many of the deaths that happened in 1918-19 would nowadays never happen.

It is good to be vigilant but the near panic that is happening is ridiculous. The recent ban on Australian import of Canadian birds is a fine example. The discovery of avian flu antibodies in these birds, prompting the ban, indicates that at one time they were exposed to bird flu - not that they have the flu. Since they do not actually have the virus, there is no chance of these birds making anything else sick with it. Top it all off with the fact there are some 144 avian influenzas in the world, and they don’t even know what kind these birds had, it can only add up to a panic reaction on the part of the Australians.

So keep it all in perspective and remember that every headline you read and hear is designed to grab your attention. Take it all with a grain of salt, don’t be a Chicken Little.