Avian flu's coming to a Gap state near you
■"In Rural Cambodia, Avian Influenza Finds a Weak Spot: Human Cases Escape Notice Amid Ignorance, Poverty As a Pandemic Threatens," by James Hookway, Wall Street Journal, 4 March 2005, p. A1.
Outbreaks of avian flu so far in 2005: Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand. All are true Gap states with Thailand sporting the top per capita GDP at just under $2k (Cambodia's just under a dollar a day (severe poverty) and Vietnam's under $2 a day). If the avian flu becomes a true pandemic, it'll be because it was able to take root and grow inside Gap states whose medical systems were easily overwhelmed by its appearance.
The 1918 flu killed between 20 and 40 million, and the last biggie in the world was in the late 1960s, so we're due, according to that paradigm, but there's nothing that says this time can't be different. These countries aren’t alone, as there are several New Core powers in the region with both the money and the know-how to step in and stem this tide.
And these New Core powers are more than incentivized to do so. As one WHO doc said at an international conference on the flu in Vietnam last week: "The world is now in the gravest possible danger of a pandemic."
When this strain first starting appearing in Hong Kong in 1997, resurfacing big time in 2003, there were strong responses from strong states. But now the virus, having retreating from the cities, is resurging in the rural areas of these very poor Gap states, where the infrastructure of both surveillance and medical response is very weak.
Cambodia's state budget is not even a billion, and the vast majority of it comes in foreign aid (500 of 644 million dollars). What does the Core spend its money on in Cambodia? Mostly putting former Khmer Rouge leaders on trial. Japan donated $18 million to that purpose alone last month. As the article points out, total foreign aid to the region on avian flu is about $18 million, with only $1 million going to Cambodia. You have to wonder whether we're spending too much money on the dead and not enough on the living here.
How does Cambodia fight outbreaks? It's biggest tool seems to be cellphones. With few fixed lines, that's the key networking tool.
If we're facing a possible global epidemic that kills tens of millions and costs billions upon billions, you have to wonder about how much it would cost to just give Cambodia truckloads of cell phones.
Otherwise, that country's pervasive disconnectedness may not just pose danger, but end up getting a lot of people in the world killed.