Can we prevent a pandemic especially with todays technologies both in surveillance and medical advances?
It has been shown over the last few years (since H5N1 was first identified in HK in 1997) that culling of domestic birds has been very successful in preventing spread. This is still an important step to take. It is sad that there are countries which are unwilling to be totally committed to take this measure due to the cost and the lack of money for compensation. Vaccination of domestic birds using avian bird vaccines (not for human use) has also been recommended under circumstances and preliminary results have shown promise. It is now one of the recommendations of WHO to prevent avian flu spread. New technologies will make the preparation of pandemic vaccines for human use a reality as shown by the rapidity with which a candidate pandemic vaccine strain became available within four weeks using a new molecular technique known as reverse genetics. This was done by the St Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. Clinical trials on this and other H5 vaccines are ongoing in
