Permanently at war

The Viral Storm: The Dawn of a New Pandemic Age

AS A war book, this should stand shoulder to shoulder with the likes of Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls or Herman Wouk’s the Winds of War. The casualty lists of mankind’s battle with viruses dwarf the victims of conventional war, the manner of deaths are more gruesome than anything from the Somme, and the sheer ubiquity is staggering.

But how people should gauge the difference between hard scientific data and scare-mongering governments is hard to decide. The flu pandemic that spread through an ill-prepared war-weary post-WWI population killed 20 million people. By contrast, SARS killed “only” 916 people though the global response was near hysterical. And one thing we know for certain, human responses in combating viral pandemics over a 90-year period barely register with the viruses. In any case, they adapt. And when they’re done, they adapt some more.

Nathan Wolfe incorporates the recent pandemics into this very readable study and for good measure throws in a few more that are lurking in the shadows to get us.

In addition to lecturing in Stanford University, Wolfe works closely with the WHO in identifying possible “birth sites” of pandemics and helping, or hoping, to wipe them out before they develop.

His methodical analysis tackles the topic according to three over-riding parameters, namely how do pandemics start, why are we plagued with so many, and what can we do to prevent them.

The agent provocateur in this permanent war is the microbe — a micro-organism such as a bacterium that is capable of inducing disease. The world of the microbe is a bit of a misnomer — universe is more accurate — with an incredible variety of forms. They are the most diverse form of life and really only came to human attention around 100 years ago.

Wolfe goes on to describe how through human agency the viruses have been able to spread across the world. Think international airline travel and war as some of the main vectors in their spread. The viruses don’t care who wins or loses on the human side, they just want to proliferate. Because the virus consists of only two basic components, RNA or DNA and a protein coat, they can’t reproduce themselves and so are dependent on the cells they infect to spread. Wolfe concludes with a look at how mankind is fighting back with its array of drugs that aim to create a “global immune system”.

Populations often react instinctively to information with panic. And that quality, as recorded by Homer, can spread dramatically — rather like a virus itself. Wolfe’s detailed study, though hardly a vade-mecum, should calibrate our judgement significantly.