The entire world has a long way to go to achieve even the most fundamental levels of preparedness. |
The first thing we have to do is make sure we have good sanitation, which right now for many areas in the Gulf region we have none: no running water, no sewers, |
The good news is we can make a vaccine. The bad news, it's not going to prevent a pandemic in the next 12 to 18 months. |
The resources required to prepare adequately will be extensive, ... But they must be considered in the light of the cost of failing to invest: a global economy that remains in a shambles for several years. |
There clearly have been ongoing changes in the virus itself, and what that means in terms of its adapting to different bird species or its ability to infect other bird species is unclear, but it may have played a role. |
There have been tremendous improvements in the plan even over the last week to 10 days, |
There's very limited lab space there. |
This is looking more and more like an H1N1 1918. |
To be able to move smallpox simply means to have a device within a writing ink pen that could very easily pass any customs officer, could easily pass through a metal detector, and you could have enough smallpox in there to start the world's worst epidemic. |
Understand that a lot of the things we need to do to prepare are not related to magic bullets. |
We basically are going to have a lot of the world's population who are going to come through this, |
We believe the avian situation we currently have in Southeast Asia is a perfect set-up for this virus to mutate into a human-to-human transmitted agent, which is a big problem and could lead this to be the next pandemic, ... We also have to keep an eye on other viruses. |
We believe the avian situation we currently have in Southeast Asia is a perfect set-up for this virus to mutate into a human-to-human transmitted agent, which is a big problem and could lead this to be the next pandemic. We also have to keep an eye on other viruses. |
We can predict now 12 to 18 months of stress of watching loved ones die, of wondering if you are going to have food on the table the next day. Those are all things that are going to mean that we are going to have to plan -- unlike any other crisis that we have had in literally the last 80-some years in this country. |
We have people congregated in areas [such as the Louisiana Superdome] where agents of infectious disease are at a very high risk, so the potential for disease outbreaks is real. |