Will it become a pandemic?

[Guest guest]

Its very encouraging to see that governments are spending billions of

dollars and organizing themselves to prepare for the worst case

scenarios for the bird flu. I think its very possible that this thing

could be stopped before it gets out of control, and iit will become

almost forgotten, as SARS has.

However, I worry that there will be governments that do not properly

prepare, or that can't properly prepare. And the virus could grow in

certain pockets of the world. If it finds a foothold in places like

Africa and other less developed areas it will inevitably spread further.

Even if the developed world has the best possible plans in place to

deal with H5N1, it will be very difficult to stop its spread if it is

entrenched in other parts of the globe.

Should H5N1 become a pandemic situation, I think that the virus itself

would probably be the least of humankinds worries. The snowball

effect of economic collapse, civil unrest, and the worsening of

existing crisis would be the greatest problems. That's why that old

saying comes to my mind: " Think globaly, act localy " . We have to look

at the big picture here, but the solutions are in things that we can

do at the local level.

Pete