H1N1 is spreading around the world. The disease has infected thousands, including members of the US military and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. Is H1N1 a threat to national, regional, or international security? Only if we make it one.
H1N1 can kill, but not significantly more than the seasonal flu. Since first being identified in April, there has been 3,402 confirmed deaths from H1N1 worldwide. By comparison, tens of millions died in the first six months of the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic. The present danger is not from the disease, but from our overreaction.
Public hysteria can trigger responses worse than the disease. In April, after only eight H1N1 fatalities, the Mexican government shut down non-essential functions for five days and advised citizens to stay in their homes. The economic cost of this ‘treatment’ could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
H1N1 was not the first epidemic, and will not be the last. Governments must tackle epidemics as they would other natural disasters: assisting citizens while minimizing the disruption to economic, social, and security activity. If we do not change how the public perceives and understands epidemic-disasters, our overreaction could be worse than the diseases themselves.
Christopher R. Albon is a Ph.D. candidate specializing in armed conflict, public health, human security, and health diplomacy.
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I completely agree that over-reaction to epidemics is ridiculous – it happened with BSE, SARS, bird flu and now swine flu.
You say that the cost of the Mexican government’s response could be hundreds of millions of dollars. But what would you say to those who might argue that had the government not taken those actions, the spread of the disease would have been worse and the cost greater? Surely there is a trade-off to be had there, if not in this particular case, with a possible pandemic in the future?
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