Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-10-25-Speech-2-058"
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"en.20051025.4.2-058"2
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"Mr President, over the past 300 years, 10 influenza pandemics have occurred among humans. The most recent came in 1968-69, and the most deadly in 1918-19: the so-called Spanish flu pandemic. Scientists have been predicting a lethal cyclical resurgence of influenza for some time, one that will be more deadly because of our low levels of resistance. Now, with avian influenza, they are recognising the hallmarks of such a virus. The medical histories of those who have died of H5N1 influenza to date are disturbingly similar to accounts of sufferers of the 1918-19 outbreak.
Since scientists first started saving flu virus samples in the early 20th century, an H5N1 influenza has never spread among human beings, so population vulnerability to an H5N1-like pandemic virus would be universal.
The influenza virus is an RNA virus containing eight genes. Like most RNA viruses, it reproduces sloppily, its genes readily fall apart, and it can absorb different genetic material which recombines in a process called reassortment. When influenza successfully infects a new species, it can reassort, and may switch from being an avian to a mammalian one. When that occurs, a human epidemic can result.
Since it was first recorded in 1997, avian flu strain H5N1 has undergone multiple reassortments – more than 17 mutations – and evolved at high speed to the point where, in January 2003, the ‘z’ virus emerged. In late 2004, there was one documented case of human-to-human transmission of the ‘z’ strain of H5N1. By April 2005, the H5N1 virus had also moved to pigs.
It is this rapid evolution of the virus that makes it such a potential threat. We cannot prepare a vaccine in advance or stockpile it. The total number of companies willing and able to produce influenza vaccines has plummeted in recent years from more than two dozen in 1980 to just a handful in 2004. There is serious questioning in the scientific community about the possibility of speeding up vaccine production because of contamination risks.
While it is important for us to be prepared and vigilant and to take precautionary action, with responsible risk assessment and forward planning, a lot will depend on the availability and effectiveness of anti-virals and vaccines and hospital bed capacity, which has been seriously reduced in all EU countries in the last decade."@en1
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