The present state of preparedness for a pandemic caused by pigs, birds and other animals is wholly inadequate and if a pandemic happened today, hundreds of millions would undoubtedly perish.

Pigs are one of the closest matches to humans. That is why we use their organs for human transplantation operations. Therefore the mutation from pig influenza to human influenza, is probably the most dangerous of all due to the nearness of match.

The problem with the present strategy is that it is predominantly targeted and dependent upon a drug cure which is a totally false strategy. There are two main reasons for this.
Flu viruses are constantly remodelling themselves and when and where a new strain occurs, like the present state in Mexico, it will take six months to develop a drug to combat it.

It has to be noted that the Spanish flu that killed between 20 million and 100 million nearly 100 years ago (there is no definitive statistic in this respect as in 1918 the analysis was rudimentary, but modern pandemic statisticians estimate that it was somewhere between the       two huge figures), did its worst in the first 26 weeks. Therefore an antidote would be a fool’s way of solving the problem.

Distribution of any new antidote would be a problem of enormous proportions and all affected would be dead by the time it got to them.
Therefore the present strategy is futile.

Considering these true facts we have to look at the ‘source’ and therefore not fight the war on the grounds of trying to find a drug solution that will never happen in time. This is common sense and governments should not be pursuing such a basically useless strategy to nowhere.

For this alternative strategy (the only one that will work) we have to look at how animal flu jumps into humans.

The world’s resources should definitely be addressing good husbandry around the world and not a drug solution, but where it has to be said that the extremely powerful pharmaceutical company lobby group, do not want this. It is therefore about time that human life was placed above corporate profits and where in this case, it is fundamental to the survival of a large proportion of the human population.

Dr David Hill
World Innovation Foundation Charity
Bern, Switzerland