Sergio Membrillas
IN MAY 1997, a 3-year-old boy with a fever arrived at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Kowloon, Hong Kong. It was a few weeks before the handover of the territory to China by the UK, and it would turn out to be a new biological era as well as a political one. The boy’s disease was no usual illness: he was infected with H5N1, a strain of flu that had until then been a bird virus.
The realisation that H5N1 could infect people raised concerns that it might cause a pandemic. More than two decades later, that hasn’t yet happened, with only around 800 cases having been reported globally. In the meantime, however, humanity has experienced a range of other new diseases. They include SARS, caused by a coronavirus that infected 8000 people before it was contained in 2003, and the H1N1 “swine flu”, which circulated globally in 2009, probably killing more than 250,000 people. Now, covid-19 has led to more than 7 million confirmed cases, and counting.
Humanity has always experienced diseases that sweep the globe. But today, we are more exposed to them. Outbreaks spread rapidly because of widespread travel – of people, animals and animal products. And as we encroach on wilderness, viruses in animals have more opportunities to jump to humans.
When H5N1 appeared, it sparked renewed interest in the threat from pandemics. We have learned much since then. With the world in covid-19’s grip, it may not feel like it, but we know a lot more than we once did about emerging diseases. That knowledge is invaluable right now. It will also help us spot…
