Viruses, Plagues and Pestilence

So far, the world’s population has just about managed to avoid complete decimation, but the prospect of a global pandemic on the Black Death scale can’t be entirely dismissed, and the epidemiologists continue to urge grave caution. But, as the fella said, they would, wouldn’t they...
The first of these unwanted phenomena to rear its ugly head was the Foot And Mouth Disease outbreak of 2001. A highly contagious viral disease which thankfully is largely confined to cloven-hoofed animals (hedgehogs and elephants are also susceptible), an epidemic erupted on the farms of Great Britain during the spring of 2001, and raged throughout the summer. Approximately seven million sheep and cattle were slaughtered in what was eventually a successful attempt to halt the disease. The crisis cost the British economy an estimated £8 billion, and more importantly, led to the postponement of the year’s Six Nations rugby tournament. It eventually subsided, and despite a mild revival in 2007, no longer poses a significant threat.
In April 2003, the World Health Organisation issued a statement confirming the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), otherwise known as Yellow Pneumonia, in Asia. It began in the Guangdong province of China, resulting in 806 infections and 34 deaths, but was not a matter of public knowledge in China, since the People’s Republic government ‘discouraged’ the Chinese media from mentioning it. The WHO soon issued a global health alert as it became clear that the disease was being spread by international air travel, but it was successfully contained, and by mid-2004 was no longer an active threat.
The Ebola virus, which periodically wreaks havoc on the Democratic Republic of Congo, erupted again in August 2007 as 217 people in the village of Kampungu fell ill. It had spread to neighbouring Uganda by February of 2008, causing 149 infections and 37 deaths. It too, thankfully, petered out before it did any more damage.
In June 2006, 65 separate outbreaks (as opposed to 65 separate cases) of avian influenza (aka ‘bird flu’) were reported worldwide. A virulent, aggressive flu with a high mutation rate, it is now the world’s largest pandemic threat, and was forecast as long ago as 2003 by the eminent virologist Robert G. Webster, who flatly stated in the American Scientist that: “The world is teetering on the edge of a pandemic that could kill a large fraction of the human population.” The UN have warned that it could potentially kill anywhere between 5 million and 150 million people. Symptoms begin with fever, coughing, sore throat and muscle aches, and progressively escalate to severe breathing difficulties and/or fatal pneumonia. WHO statistics suggested that 60% of cases will result in death. Across the globe, people have reacted by buying chicken less often, and the price of poultry has plummeted.
As if that little lot wasn’t enough to worry about, 2009 witnessed a worldwide epidemic of the beautifully-named ‘swine flu’. At the time of writing, it has caused 9,797 confirmed fatalities, though the WHO states that the true death toll is ‘unquestionably higher’. Taking no chances, the Egyptian government has ordered the slaughter of every pig in Egypt, in a move reminiscent of King Herod. Worst-case analyses prophesy that the swine flu may emulate the 1918 global epidemic of Spanish flu, which began with a wave of mild cases in the spring, followed by more deadly waves in the autumn, and spread to every single part of the world, eventually killing hundreds of thousands. However, the flu is not by any means as bad as first predicted – in fact only babies and people with long-term health conditions seem to be at risk – and the pandemic is expected to have peaked by mid-winter in the Northern hemisphere.
A good time was had by all...
Merry Christmas and a happy New Year.