Our readers are an intelligent lot, by and large. They rely on us to scan the media and sift the passing tides of information for something that might tell us all about what is going to happen. Which is why today we lift everything from a brilliant article called Which Disease is Likely to be the Biggest Emerging Problem in 2025?, penned by Professor Conor Meehan of Nottingham Trent University.[1] The whole trope of future pandemics is one of our raisons d’etre on this little blog. But our frequent postings (LSS ad nauseam) lack the authority and intellectual heft which Conor’s clear-sighted article possesses in abundance. If you want a place to start, his piece is it.
Conor starts by listing the current big three killers: HIV, Tuberculosis and malaria. which already claim around two million victims a year. Next he gives us the key watchlist which experts are monitoring. Our old favourites of antimicrobial resistant diseases are on it. Of course, you guessed we’d drag them in! But Conor zeroes in on Avian influenza, Subtype A H5N1. And it’s giving experts like him considerable pause for thought. We’ll pick out two points here. Firstly it is indeed jumping the species barrier and into humans, in places as diverse as Mongolia and the USA. So far direct transmission seems precluded, you need to contact it. But(this is our worrying secondly) it’s now only one mutation away from locking onto the receptors in our cells which will make human to human transmission a doddle. Right now in the dead days between Christmas and New Year, this may seem ” a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand” But so was COVID-19 once upon a time. As were many other pandemics.
Our thoughts? If you want a baseline of knowledge to protect you family/risk manage your business/sound knowledgeable in the pub, Conor’s article is the place to start. One more: one of the signs of intelligence is that it does indeed scan the future, and does not waste time looking to recreate a vanished and imaginary past. Happy Next Year.
#Professor Conor Meehan #Influenza #pandemic #Avian influenza, #Sub type A H5N1
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