The Real War of the Worlds: Infectious Diseases Are the Deadly Invaders

WORCESTER, Mass., Oct. 28, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- On October 31, 1938, The War of the Worlds was broadcast on CBS radio. The fictional radio play gave alarming details of a destructive advance of "men from Mars" invading Earth. The broadcast set off a public panic.

Today we are in the midst of a similar invasion, only this time it's real. Mankind is being bombarded by infectious diseases—some of which were previously considered controlled (malaria, tuberculosis), and others that have emerged within the past decade or so (Ebola, HIV/AIDS, H1N1, MERS, and drug-resistant pathogens). The same is happening in animals: an unprecedented outbreak of blue tongue disease in Europe, porcine epidemic diarrhea in U.S. swine, and African swine fever rampaging across Eurasia.

Infectious diseases are waging war against humanity, and they are winning. An estimated 13 million people died last year of communicable, preventable, and mostly treatable diseases. Worldwide, one death in three is from an infectious or communicable disease. Every 30 seconds, a child dies of infectious disease. One person infected with influenza will shed billions of virus particles. Put that person in the right environment, mix in influenza from birds or pigs, and the recipe for a pandemic has been created.

How ready are we for a pandemic?

While Ebola is not our greatest threat, the U.S. response to it paints a grim future for more deadly diseases. President Obama resisted calls to impose a ban on travelers from countries most affected by the Ebola outbreak, and it is now on our soil, in Europe, and on the move.  

It is claimed that we have the best health care system in the world. Sadly, that is false. This summer The Commonwealth Fund ranked the U.S. health system last among 11 countries on measures of access, equity, quality, efficiency, and healthy lives—including dollars spent. There is no promise that this will change; the president's proposed discretionary spending for fiscal year 2015 shows 55% is dedicated to the military; 5% is allocated to medicine and health.

The American people should be outraged at complacency with our boundaries and limited resources dedicated to health care.  We should be barraging our elected representatives, asking them what protocols we have in place at airports and our borders, why it takes 10 years to get vaccines to market, why our medical facilities and personnel seem unprepared to handle infectious diseases, and why we appear incapable of anticipating emergent diseases and treatment options.

We should also question—quite strongly—the massive gap between military and health care spending.

One Tomahawk missile costs $1.41 million; the average cost of a flu shot is around $20. The recently approved Farm Bill, authorizing $15 million for the National Animal Health Laboratory Network, may sound generous.  But it is not enough to support 62 federal, state, and institutional laboratories that monitor for foreign and zoonotic diseases—those that affect both animals and humans. Compare this to the cost of one AH-64E Apache Longbow helicopter at a whopping $35.5 million; more than 2,000 have been built to date.

USAID reports that the highly infectious H5N1 avian influenza virus continues to infect poultry and people; research suggests the rapidly evolving virus may be only a few mutations away from causing an influenza pandemic. The current death rate is at 59% for those who contract the virus. What will the death rate be if H5N1 reaches pandemic level? If we do not invest in increased oversight, a new generation of antibiotics, a stronger healthcare infrastructure, and funding on medical research, we will be fully unprepared to handle deadly invaders.

We are clearly allocating resources to the wrong war. Our worst enemy is invisible to the naked eye and has far greater destructive powers. We need to increase, worldwide, the standards, quality, and expectations of public and animal health to best protect humanity. Until we do, we will have lost the battle before we even begin to fight.

Richard French, D.V.M., M.S., Ph.D., is Dean of Animal Studies at the Becker College School of Animal Studies and Allerton Chair of Animal Health Sciences. A veterinary pathologist, Dr. French has served as an instructor and collaborator with the USDA, Plum Island Animal Disease Center for 10 years, as well as both the Agricultural Research Service and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Dr. French is an expert on zoonotic diseases, particularly those with public health significance like H1N1 and avian flu. He has authored and co-authored numerous articles and presentations, including "War of the Worlds: Our Worlds Are Colliding and Infectious Disease Is Winning – Emerging Diseases and the One Health Initiative."

CONTACT: Kimberly Dunbar, 508-373-9720, kimberly.dunbar@becker.edu

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SOURCE Becker College