Is Britain ready for a major 'flu epidemic'?

Is Britain ready for a major ‘flu epidemic’?

The flu, influenza is a respiratory illness caused by a highly infectious virus. The symptoms of flu are sore throat, fever, muscle aches, headache and cough. The structure of the virus is a capsid coat surrounding a core with genetic material. The reason that we cannot eradicate the viral infection is when the virus reproduces by taking over our respiratory cells, the genetic materials mutates when it’s making a copy of itself. The mutation causes the antigens on the capsid changes shape. This makes it difficult for our immune system to recognise the virus for the second time. (thenakedscientists.com)

There are two main types of virus that caused infection: influenza A and B. In this essay, I am going to be focusing on influenza A which is a more severe infection than influenza B. (hpa.org.uk). Influenza A, also known as Avian Influenza, one of the biggest threats for human and animal health, had recent epidemics over the glob and Britain also becomes vulnerable to it. Influenza A virus are found naturally in birds, and it is highly infectious and harmful to domesticated bird such as turkeys, chickens and ducks. The virus attacks the lining cells in the intestine of the poultries. High concentration remains in the poultries’ excretions such as saliva and faeces, and other poultries get infected by contacting with the excretions. (Avian Influenza)

In order for human to catch the bird flu, they have to be in close contact with infected poultries. Professor Pennington, a microbiologist claimed that bird flu is still a poultry problem, not human. (Coping with bird flu in Britain) However, scientists discovered that flu mutates faster than they expected. H5N1, a particular strain of avian influenza virus, which had killed people in Asia, they mutated and has the ability to spread the virus human to human. There is a threat of outbreak globally including Britain. If it does, millions of lives would be threaten worldwide. (Flu mutates ...

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Precautions for outbreak of avian flu have been taken by UK government. They claimed that they are fully prepared and ready for any outbreak. In February 2007, 2600 turkeys in a farm in Suffolk were killed by avian flu, later identified H5N1. The government culled 159,000 turkeys in that farm later on that month, which were infected by H5N1. All turkeys had to be checked by Food Standards Agency before they are releases for sales. (Timeline: Bird flu in the UK)

Other precautions taken were developing and buying vaccines. Vaccines are essential when the avian flu virus is able to spread themselves human to human. Vaccines are made with dead or attenuated virus, in this case, H5N1 virus. People are usually given two doses, a weak dose followed by a strong dose. The first weak dose is to trigger off the immune response to this particular virus, and then the immune system would start producing the memory cells that have the complementary antigen receptor to this virus. After the body can cope with this virus after the weak dose, strong dose is given. The immune system would produce more memory cells. So if later the person is infected by this particular virus, the memory cells can trigger off the production of antibodies to combat the virus.

In 2004, Britain became one of just three countries which has laboratory for developing avian flu vaccines. Vaccine is developed by genetic engineering. The basis of the vaccine would be a combination human flu and avian flu genes. (UK 'developing bird flu vaccine'). In July 2005, in order to combat the new strain of H5N1 virus, the government bought two millions doses of vaccines. The medical and emergency workers across Britain get priority for being vaccinated. Buying vaccines was necessary to combat a sudden bird flu epidemic. (UK to buy bird flu vaccine stocks)

In my opinion, I think Britain is ready for a ‘flu epidemic’. They have done all of the precautions that they can do. They have a laboratory for developing flu vaccinations, so they could have supply of vaccines for themselves. They will be able to produce enough vaccines to protect the British people if emergency. The government also bought two millions doses of bird flu vaccines. After 2600 turkeys were killed by H5N1 virus, the government culled the rest of the turkeys on that farm, and checked all the turkeys before they are sold in public. The government was efficient to destroy possible sources for spreading the virus to human.

However, I think there are still concerns whether Britain can cope with a major flu epidemic. I think the main concern is the mutation of the viruses. Avian flu viruses are constantly mutating their genes inside the core; the mutation causes the shape of the antigen on the capsid to change. The problem is that all the vaccines the government had developed and bought only aim at the particular strain of H5N1. If that strain the H5N1 undergo mutation, the vaccines would be useless on the new strain of virus. Also Britain will have to develop a new vaccine, and it takes a lot of time to develop a vaccine especially on avian viruses. The other concern is if there is an outbreak of bird flu, the whole country will need to be vaccinated for defending themselves from the virus. This action would be in a big scale and would Britain have enough dose of vaccine available for all the people?

In conclusion, I think it is impossible to stop outbreak of flu, because of their constant mutation. Flu vaccinations are very narrow, scientists have to predict what the new strain is going to be. However, I think Britain government has done what can to get prepared and ready for a major ‘flu epidemic’. Since outbreak of flu happened in countries in Asia, Britain could refer to their precautions and improve on them. So in my opinion, I think Britain is ready for a major ‘flu epidemic’.

Bibliography

Book

Title: Avian Influenza: Preventaion and Control/Remcos. Schrijver and G. Koch/Springer in 2005

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