Global public health officials keeping tabs on avian influenza. (cover story)

AVIAN influenza; EPIDEMICS; PREVENTIVE medicine; PUBLIC health; VACCINES

This article focuses on the efforts of the international public health community to fight the threat of a worldwide avian influenza pandemic. Aimed at preventing widespread infection of what is proving to be a strain deadly to humans in 72 percent of cases, the public health response includes a vaccine trial, global influenza summits and efforts to improve international communication among health officials. In 2004, a pathogenic avian influenza virus strain caused poultry disease in eight Asian countries and infected at least 44 people, killing 32. Most of those who died had close contact with chickens or ducks, yet one concern about the virus is that it may mutate to become passable from human to human. During an international meeting on avian influenza in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, in February 2005, international health officials said countries must band together to prevent a worst-case infection scenario, such as the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 that killed 50 million people. John Herbold, an epidemiology professor at the University of Texas School of Public Health in San Antonio, said he has been discussing avian influenza a lot in the classroom. He said that the avian flu situation reminds him of the swine flu scare of 1976. In that incident, the U.S. mounted a national vaccination campaign after one person died of a swine flu strain that had the potential to spark a worldwide pandemic.