As we build up our capacity to respond to seasonal influenza, it will put us in good stead. |
At the end of the day, you have a broader, more favorable, beneficial effect on society by preventing the spread by vaccinating the spreaders ? not the grandpa who sits at home watching TV and doesn't go out and spread it to anybody but is concerned about it coming into the house. There has not been a policy change in that, but it is under very active discussion. |
Currently the world capability is somewhere less than 500 million doses of vaccine with, you know, close to 6 billion people in the world. In addition, the dose that's required to induce an immune response with this particular vaccine is a significantly higher dose than the dose that you use to protect against the standard run-of-the-mill seasonal flu. |
Developing a vaccine doesn't mean we will stockpile it to a great extent. |
Every day there's another country. It's going to go all the way across, there's no doubt about it. |
I don't think that the resources of the western European countries are going to implode because of this. But you see disaster striking, economically and otherwise, when you get into countries such as in Africa and other developing nations in which they don't have the resources to handle this. |
It is entirely conceivable that this virus is inherently programmed that it will never be able to go efficiently from human to human. Hopefully the epidemic (in birds) will burn itself out, which epidemics do, before the virus evolves the capability of being more efficient in going from human to human. |
It is unclear whether the mutation occurred in the person or whether it occurred in the chicken. |
It isn't an absolute, but you certainly can say that the chances of containing spread among bird flocks in developed nations that have good agricultural capabilities and controls, to identify rapidly and cull and eliminate the sick chickens to prevent spread . . . is much better than in some other developing nations. |
It will take years to get stockpiles to the point you can effectively use it at the doses you want. |
It won't be what you see in countries in which there is no regulation, in which there is no incentive to compensate farmers, in which the people, who are so poor, when they see their chickens are getting infected they immediately sell them or they don't tell anybody because they don't want them culled. That is a critical issue that is fundamentally different than what we see in Western Europe and that we will see in the United States. |
It's obviously a small step, but at least we have something that could buy us some time. It would probably go to first-responders _ especially hospital personnel _ in case of an emerging pandemic. |
Not to prepare for the worst-case scenario would be completely irresponsible. |
One migratory bird does not a pandemic make. |
People ask me, 'How worried should we be? |