Outbreak: Could it happen here?

Ann Curry • Profile

Pick up a newspaper, turn on the TV and it’s there: the news about avian flu.

It can be alarming sometimes, often confusing. And nearly everyone has the same question: Could it happen here?

In a special Dateline, the world’s top flu experts helped us create a dramatic vision of how our world might change in the grip of a pandemic.

Some background
In 1996, a new and particularly deadly strain of avian flu was found in a goose in China. It was found a year later in Hong Kong and six people died from the virus. They were the first known human cases.

But in 2003, this same deadly strain of virus appeared again in bird populations and this time it spread rapidly—through China and into Southeast Asia. 

It spread, according to experts, by migrating water fowl and by the legal and illegal trafficking of birds and bird parts.

From Southeast Asia, the virus moved into remote sections of Russia, then into Central Europe. In the last several months, it has spread to parts of Africa and Western Europe.

Almost 200 people are known to have been infected in 9 different countries.  More than half of them have died.

As far as we know, the people infected with the current strain of avian flu did NOT get the virus from another person but after extremely close contact with sick birds—and even those cases are rare.

Experts say this deadly virus could infect birds here in the U.S. in a matter of months.

“People are concerned about poultry, but they don’t need to be if, in fact, they cook it. If it’s well cooked, it’s safe to eat and you’re not going get the avian flu,” says Dr. Sue Bailey, Former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs.

But here’s the bigger worry:  The avian flu virus is constantly mutating and what is keeping health experts up nights is the possibility that it might change into a virus that can be easily passed from human to human.

And that could trigger a pandemic, the uncontrollable global spread of a disease. No one knows when, how or even if it will happen.  But the world’s top flu experts are telling us to prepare.

We’ve had three pandemics in the last century— including the big one: the so-called Spanish Flu of 1918 that killed up to 40 million people worldwide and more than 500,000 Americans. People were afraid to go outside.  There were shortages of food and medical supplies.

Will history repeat itself?

Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt is the man charged with preparing America for the next pandemic.

“Anything we say before a pandemic happens feels alarmist,” says Leavitt. “Anything that we have done once a pandemic starts seems inadequate. We’re at a greater risk of a pandemic than at any time in decades.  We are overdue.  And we’re under prepared.”

To prepare this report, we’ve consulted with the men and women who will be on the front lines of a pandemic if it were to happen—experts from international, federal, state, local agencies and many more.

They have given us their views, predictions and their guidance. 

On Sunday night, Dateline took an unusual step to illustrate what the future might hold.  Using doctors, medical students, actors and volunteers, we’ve produced a scenario based on what those experts say could happen in a world threatened by pandemic.

What you’re about to see is not intended to frighten or alarm—but simply to ask the question.... are we prepared?

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