The Next Big Epidemic?

The article I chose is titled "Counting the Costs of a Global Epidemic" by Anmar Frangoul, from CNBC on Wednesday February 5th. This article focuses on past outbreaks of different strains of flu in history, and poses the question of when the next one will happen. For example, SARS in 2002 and Swine flu in 2009. The article talks about how planning is really the best thing to do, quoting former Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Michael O.  Leavitt:

"Ultimately, the key to preparing for a pandemic is to develop, stockpile, and prepare to distribute vaccines and antivirals – vaccines to prevent people from becoming infected by a virus, and antivirals to treat them if they are infected."

The conclusion is that there's really no perfect way of planning for a disease, just controlling it once it strikes. 

My first reaction to this was that this idea is very scary. Reading about the costs and devastation that epidemics and pandemics in the past have caused makes me slightly worried. Knowing that there is no perfect cure except to plan for the worst seems to be helpless. Knowing the history of many other pandemics that we have studied in class such as the plague or smallpox, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak. Diseases spread and people die, but time keeps going. The crisis eventually ends, as we have seen before. 

I really enjoyed this article. Reading about the swine flu makes me remember getting my shot in the auditorium of Parker Middle School. It was a crazy time to think that we were vaccinating ourselves for an epidemic. I read the article and started getting worked up about the next epidemic, and then I had to remind myself that I've actually lived through one, which was pretty cool to me.  

Photo: "Reported Fatalities from Pandemic Influenza." Map. Nature.com. Nature Publishing Group, 2009.