At times, it’s hard to see beyond the world of mergers, stockholder lawsuits, broadband, global terrorism and dropped calls.
Last week, the World Health Organization signaled in strong terms that it has real fears about the possibility of a global avian flu pandemic and the ability of countries-particularly poor ones-to contain a catastrophic outbreak capable of killing millions upon millions of people. Such a scenario could be realized if the H5N1 virus were to mutate such that it could be transmitted among humans. Luckily, though not for the reported 50 people across Asia who have died from the bird flu since 2003, the fatal consequences of the flu have been limited.
Initial human cases of the avian flu were identified in Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia during the past three years. More recently, the killer flu was confirmed in poultry in parts of Siberia and Kazakhstan.
From 1918 to 1919, or about 20 years after the still-living federal telephone excise tax was enacted to fund the Spanish-American War, the Spanish flu is said to have wiped out 50 million people in a year and a half.
WHO’s latest expressions of concern came in conjunction with the announcement of a major antiviral drug donation-enough to treat 3 million people-from Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche.
“If a flu pandemic were to emerge in a poor country, for example, these drugs could be flown quickly to the center of a potential pandemic,” said Dr. Lee Jong-wook, director-general of WHO, at news conference last Wednesday in Geneva.
Ly Sovann, Cambodia’s disease surveillance czar, has been on the job for months. His agenda is bit different than antiviral stockpiling. Indeed, as reported earlier this year by The Washington Post, Ly Sovann and his people are on the ground-literally-benignly looking for trouble.
How? Ly Sovann has rounded up a nationwide web of cell phone-armed informants to keep him apprised of any possible outbreak of the avian flu. “If we start seeing the disease spread more quickly, speed will be everything to contain it,” he told the Post.
As far as surveillance systems go, Ly Sovann’s is relatively primitive. Yet, as the news story optimistically suggests, the 36-year-old Ly Sovann-on his $38-a-month salary-could be the key to saving the planet from an unthinkable health disaster.
Where else might wireless technology fit into health infrastructures of developing and industrialized nations alike? There appears to be lots of potential for leveraging wireless and other communications-information technologies to enhance health care. There’s probably good money in it too.
