The Next Pandemic: Not if, but When
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/10/op...0130510 &_r=0

TERRIBLE new forms of infectious disease make headlines, but not at the start. Every pandemic begins small. Early indicators can be subtle and ambiguous. When the Next Big One arrives, spreading across oceans and continents like the sweep of nightfall, causing illness and fear, killing thousands or maybe millions of people, it will be signaled first by quiet, puzzling reports from faraway places ? reports to which disease scientists and public health officials, but few of the rest of us, pay close attention. Such reports have been coming in recent months from two countries, China and Saudi Arabia.

You may have seen the news about H7N9, a new strain of avian flu claiming victims in Shanghai and other Chinese locales. Influenzas always draw notice, and always deserve it, because of their great potential to catch hold, spread fast, circle the world and kill lots of people. But even if you?ve been tracking that bird-flu story, you may not have noticed the little items about a ?novel coronavirus? on the Arabian Peninsula.

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One authority at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an expert on nasty viruses, told me that the SARS outbreak was the scariest such episode he?d ever seen. That cautionary experience is one reason this novel coronavirus in the Middle East has attracted such concern.

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What can we do? The first obligation is informed awareness. Early reports arrive from afar, seeming exotic and peripheral, but don?t be fooled. One emergent virus, sooner or later, will be the Next Big One. It may show up first in China, in Congo or Bangladesh, or maybe on the Arabian Peninsula; but it will globalize. Most people on earth nowadays live within 24 hours? travel time of Saudi Arabia. And in October, when millions of people journey to Mecca for the hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage, the lines of connections among humans everywhere will be that much shorter.

We can?t detach ourselves from emerging pathogens either by distance or lack of interest. The planet is too small. We?re like the light heavyweight boxer Billy Conn, stepping into the ring with Joe Louis in 1946: we can run, but we can?t hide.

Entire article: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/10/op...0130510 &_r=0