The Global Avian Threat

In recent months two significant events in U.S. history have served to highlight the current government’s failure and incapacity to fulfill the role for which they were elected. Continuing civil strife, an increase in suicide bombings, and growing unrest prevail in Iraq. Similarly Hurricane Katrina ruined millions of lives, caused disastrous damage to the economy, and gave virtually all Americans cause for thought about the abilities of the current administration. Journalists quickly jumped on the bandwagon, clambering over one another to report on the human tragedy and loss of life. For weeks columns have lamented the destruction, poor response, and the suffering of fellow citizens—all with extremely good cause—but still further urgency is necessary. Sadly, however, the war on terror and natural disasters are not the only demons that threaten the population.

Beyond the scope of the American continent there are far more concerning matters involving global survival that took place in the last week. On Sept. 19, government officials in Jakarta, Indonesia shut down the Ragunan Zoo when tests on 27 exotic birds revealed that 19 were infected with the H5N1 avian influenza, better known as the bird flu virus. According to authorities a woman in the area also died of the illness, while four children lay in hospital after appearing to contract the deadly disease. Perhaps even more concerning, the zoo hosted tens of thousands of guests this past weekend even while authorities knew of the positive results.

From those events alone the severity of the bird flu virus hardly seems to usurp or even credit the media or government’s attention in this time of extreme American crisis. But according to the World Health Organization, countries must now prepare for a worldwide pandemic and mobilize for “an all-out war on avian influenza.” As a reaction the Bush administration provided $5.5 million “in technical assistance and grants” to affected nations throughout Southeast Asia throughout the past year. On May 11, 2005 an emergency appropriations bill, signed by Bush, suitably gave a further $25 million to prevent and control the spread of the disease.

The increment in funding demonstrates the president’s true worry about the problem. Since mid-2003 outbreaks of bird flu have occurred in Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Russia, Thailand, Vietnam, and possibly Laos. And, of 112 laboratory-confirmed cases in humans, 57 people died from the disease. With no known capacity of person-to-person transmission, human cases of the virus have been relatively isolated, but the Indonesian Health Minister, Siti Fadilah Supari, warned of more possible victims in her country and forewarned the change to a humanly transmittable strain is “just a matter of time.”

With a laboratory death rate of more than 50 percent and a very significant chance of a international outbreak of the disease, H5N1 avian influenza has caused significant fear throughout the globe. This is also considering that the last global pandemic, the Spanish Flu of 1918-1919, caused more deaths than World War I combat: an estimated 20 to 40 million people throughout the world died from the flu.

Presented with such grave statistics and histories the natural response to hearing about the bird flu is one of great alarm. Now, consider the worrying spread of the disease in Asia, and then think back to the government’s abysmal actions in the face of Katrina and Iraq. If the outbreak of bird flu does occur within human populations it will pose a far larger threat to all humanity than natural disasters or war. And that’s nothing to sneeze at.

Bede A. Moore ’06, a Crimson editor, is a history concentrator in Winthrop House.