Another global threat — one that is a repeated refrain amongst the White House, Centers for Disease Control, former national security advisers and even Bill Gates — is a pandemic.
Between the lines: Influenza is of particular concern for health officials, even though there are more contagious viruses — for example, measles — and more deadly ones, like Ebola.
- But the flu virus can mutate quickly, sometimes acquiring a new ability to infect humans easily, causing concern about its potential to spark a pandemic, which happens when a new strain appears that most have no immunity against.
One challenge with the flu virus is a virulent strain can emerge quickly and seemingly disappear rapidly, making it difficult to anticipate the virus' course and to develop a vaccine against its possible strains.
- Funding is being directed into the development of a universal flu vaccine that aims to offer broader immunity against different strains of the virus, but researchers face many obstacles. The National Institutes of Health is testing a vaccine and expects early results next year.
- Gates and others argue the world needs a multilateral pandemic response program — including a universal vaccine — to mitigate the threat of pandemic flu (and other pathogens).
Our thought bubble, per Axios' Eileen Drage O'Reilly: Emerging virulent pathogens are a threat each nation needs to report on a transparent basis to promote possible global coordination to halt their spread.
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