Sergio Membrillas
IN MAY 1997, a 3-year-old boy with a fever arrived at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Kowloon, Hong Kong. It was a few weeks before the handover of the territory to China by the UK, and it would turn out to be a new biological era as well as a political one. The boy’s disease was no usual illness: he was infected with H5N1, a strain of flu that had until then been a bird virus.
The realisation that H5N1 could infect people raised concerns that it might cause a pandemic. More than two decades later, that hasn’t yet happened, with only around 800 cases having been reported globally. In the meantime, however, humanity has experienced a range of other new diseases. They include SARS, caused by a coronavirus that infected 8000 people before it was contained in 2003, and the H1N1 “swine flu”, which circulated globally in 2009, probably killing more than 250,000 people. Now, covid-19 has led to more than 7 million confirmed cases, and counting.
Humanity has always experienced diseases that sweep the globe. But today, we are more exposed to them. Outbreaks spread rapidly because of widespread travel – of people, animals and animal products. And as we encroach on wilderness, viruses in animals have more opportunities to jump to humans.
When H5N1 appeared, it . We have learned much since then. With the world in covid-19’s grip, it may not feel like it, but we know a lot more than we once did about emerging diseases. That knowledge is invaluable right now. It will also help us spot…
