Epidemiologists (those who study the spread of diseases) often find themselves in a most unenviable position. A new, highly transmissible disease is identified and they feel compelled to warn of the dangers of an impending pandemic. Such was the position that virologist Robert Webster found himself in, in 2003. A new and potentially highly pathogenic virus of the H5N1 flu strain had developed in birds in Asia between 1996 and 2002. First discovered in a goose from Guangdong, and known as avian influenza, or more simply bird flu, it had decimated domesticated bird stocks and proved able to jump the species boundary and kill a variety of vertebrate species. A relative of the dreaded “Spanish flu” that killed between 30 and 50 million people in 1918-19, H5N1 looked like an imminent threat. “The world is teetering on the edge of a pandemic that could kill a large fraction of the human population,” Webster warned in an article in American Scientist.
Two years later, in 2005, Webster’s call was amplified by another expert on bird flu, who stated that an outbreak among humans could kill between 50 and 150 million people. The politicians began listening, and in 2006 billions were spent researching H5N1, developing vaccines and planning responses to an outbreak. The plans included widely publicised and dramatic rehearsals of responses to outbreaks in places like airports, and health ministers began warning that a pandemic could wreak more damage than a terrorist attack. The public was thus on high alert, and governments and companies were poised to commence mass production of vaccines. And then – no pandemic eventuated.
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