Alysha Huxley
An influenza expert warns we could again see a similar pandemic to the 1918 Spanish flu, that took between 50 to 100 million lives worldwide.
Federation University adjunct senior research fellow Dr Alan Hampson, has been studying the virus for 50 years.
Dr Hampson said modern strains of the virus did not yet have the ability to spread in humans at the rate seen a century ago, but that did not seem too far away.
“If you look at the genetics, the flu mutates very readily and it would only take a few mutations,” he said.
Dr Hampson said the general population needed to treat the flu more seriously and that cold and flu tablets were only exacerbating the possibility of another pandemic.
“These tablets encourage infectious people to go to work and spread the virus. If you’re sick, stay home and keep it to yourself,” he said.
Dr Hampson said he is also concerned about vaccine shortages.
“It takes so long to make a vaccine, that if you have a rapidly spreading pandemic, it’ll spread across the world in less than six months and you don’t have time to make a new one,” he said.
Compared to last year, the current number of confirmed flu cases has been very low.
But Dr Hampson said “the World Health Organisation estimates that around 10 per cent of the world’s population are infected annually with around five million severe cases and a quarter to half a million deaths.”
“Even today about 50 per cent of people who are infected with the H5N1 and the H7N9 viruses actually die, despite having the best medical care,” he said.
“Young fit people can die too.”
Dr Hampson said Australians having their data accessible in the government’s My Health Record may provide future benefit for helping people survive influenza.
“People with heart disease and diabetes are more likely to die from influenza,” he said.
“If doctors had access to this information they could have their patients flagged.”
Federation University Churchill, is hosting Dr Hampson this Wednesday at 5.30pm where he will give a public lecture about influenza as part of National Science Week.
Dr Hampson said education about the virus and its threats was critical for the wider community to understand.
Register for the lecture here: ow.ly/NH7g30lhfwQ.
*Alysha Huxley is a Monash University journalism student undertaking a placement at The Express.
