I wasn’t really thinking about bird flu very much, until Kate (in Australia) wrote a post about it last month. That got my mind on to the topic, and I decided that I should at least pay a little more attention. Now today Phil at LP has also written about bird flu, this time prompting me to write something about the situation here in Laos.
We went to a briefing the other night here in Laos about the risk of a possible bird flu pandemic. (Well, actually, we got the time wrong and showed up just as it was finishing, and had to be brought up to speed by some friends who got the time right). While bird flu has not been recorded in Laos, it has been recorded in every country surrounding Laos - Vietnam, Cambodia, Southern China and Thailand (not sure about Burma, actually)... and considering the health care available in this country, if people were dying of bird flu there is a pretty strong possibility that no one would actually know. Additionally, according to the WHO, Laos has the perfect environment for increased risk of bird flu:
To date, most human cases have occurred in rural or periurban areas where many households keep small poultry flocks, which often roam freely, sometimes entering homes or sharing outdoor areas where children play. As infected birds shed large quantities of virus in their faeces, opportunities for exposure to infected droppings or to environments contaminated by the virus are abundant under such conditions.*In my neighbourhood, for example, birds (mostly chickens) roam around between the houses - including right in front of our house. I used to just worry about them getting in the way of the motorbike, now I am starting to see them in a whole new light...
Anyway, according to the embassy officials here, the risk of a pandemic is apparently pretty low (about a 10% chance in the next 5 years - although some have disputed their ability to come up with such a figure), but they have still put Laos on Level 3 alert.
Apparently if we get to Level 4 the Australian Embassy Clinic (the ONLY clinic in the country with hygiene standards and access to a good range of medicine) will close and all non-essential personnel from the Embassy will be evacuated.
They told us that we should self-evacuate when we start seeing small clumps of people coming down with the virus, because this is a strong sign that it has mutated and can now pass from human to human. According to the briefing, from the time that this happens and a full pandemic will be 2 to 3 days.
Really, when you think about it, that wouldn't give us a lot of time to evacuate, especially since our ability to do so will apparently depend on airline staff being willing to volunteer to still fly - and why would they? However, since there are over 200,000 Australians in SE Asia, the government says that it will not be able to assist us. Instead, they advised us to stockpile food, gloves and masks and to stay inside our houses if a pandemic breaks out...
After the (missed) briefing, we spent the rest of the evening working out what food to stockpile, and where would be a good spot (outside of Vientiane) to go to wait out the pandemic (somewhere isolated and not on the way to anywhere else). The guys in the group also turned the conversation towards the need for weapons and fuel...
Its weird, it really all seems quite surreal, and yet every now and then it suddenly feels quite real and just a little bit scary...
Update: Apologoies are in order to P. who had no part in the conversation on weapons. I hadn't intended to lump him in with the other two males present, or forgotten that he was there. I just kind of assumed that everyone would know that such a topic wasn't really his thing.
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