Amidst speculation that an avian flu pandemic is looming, Ankita Sodhia worries about returning to her native Thailand, where 20 people have contracted the disease since December 2003, 13 of whom have died.
“I am [worried], since it already spread through Thailand once, and many contracted the disease,” the School of Management sophomore said in an email, referring to the 1957 Asian Flu pandemic, which caused an estimated 2 million deaths.
With explosive media coverage raising the possibility of further outbreaks of avian flu among humans, perhaps resulting in a pandemic, students planning to travel and study abroad may share Sodhia’s concerns.
City Councilor Chuck Turner (Roxbury, Dorchester) said President George W. Bush’s administration is spending too much money on military defense but is not doing enough to fend off a possible avian flu pandemic.
“It is clear that the federal administration and Congress is not prepared to spend our tax dollars on our needs,” Turner said in an email. “The president and Congress have clearly stepped through the looking glass, slid down the rabbit hole and have lost their collective minds.”
According to the World Health Organization, from Dec. 2003 to this month, there were 122 reported human cases of avian flu, 62 of them resulting in death. All cases occurred in the four Southeast Asian nations of Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Indonesia. Although the disease was detected this year in poultry in Turkey, Romania, Croatia, Kazakhstan and Russia, there have been no confirmed cases of it passing to humans there.
Aside from its staggering 50 percent mortality rate, the avian flu has yet to affect humans on a large scale. On a scale of one to six, the WHO pegs the current pandemic alert at three – “no or very limited human-to-human transmission.”
Given the current state of the disease, health experts and Boston University staff say there is no need to panic, but urge caution.
Joe Finkhouse, BU International Programs Instituitional Relations director, said that although the avian flu outbreak has not affected any study abroad programs so far, it might play a role in the future.
“Of course we have to be concerned … since it is in the news so much, not just here but especially in Europe,” he said. “At all of our sites we have to be very aware of it.”
International Programs has no study abroad sites in any of the areas hit by human cases of avian flu this year.
There is currently no vaccine for the avian flu. Because avian flu comes from infected poultry, the Center for Disease Control recommends that “when possible, care should be taken to avoid contact with live, well-appearing, sick or dead poultry and with any surfaces that may have been contaminated by poultry or their feces or secretions.” Consuming well-cooked poultry, however, is safe.
Travelers worried about catching the avian flu should not change existing travel plans, according to SMG junior Kawin Rungsimuntakul.
When asked if anyone should change their plans to avoid countries, such as Thailand, where human cases of avian flu have sprung up, Rungsimuntakul, a Bangkok native said, “absolutely not.”
“Being smart about things and taking good care of yourself should be much more beneficial than changing your plans,” he said in an email.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
