Greetings!
My cofounder of ReadyMoms Alliance periodically writes significant pieces on the forum Fluwiki. Lately, she’s been writing a series called “Pandemic Flu and Global health Security’. Part 3 of this series is titled ‘Pandemic Flu and Global Health Security III – H5N1 – the Ultimate Demographic Timebomb’
”. It’s an excellent piece that emphasizes the concern of the number of folks who can possibly perish in a pandemic … particularly the number of children.
Since there are graphs and charts, please visit the original item over at Fluwiki (link given).
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Pandemic Flu and Global Health Security III – H5N1 – the Ultimate Demographic Timebomb
http://www.newfluwiki2.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=8AB4496497A21C82F61709EC524A819B?diaryId=3114
(Dr. Susan Chu, Editor, Fluwiki; Co-Founder: ReadyMoms Alliance)
Excerpt:
Writing about a subject as grim as pandemic flu, there are times when you really wish your estimates, the numbers you crunch up in the dead of night, like here or here, are wrong, and that things couldn’t possibly be as bad as you figured. Or you go back and re-read how a ‘mild’ pandemic can bring a city like London to the edge of anarchy, and still find it incredible that the mildest of scenarios still means the equivalent of not one, but 24, of the 2004 Indian ocean tsunamis happening in the space of 6 months. How is the world going to cope? Given especially the widespread ignorance of these figures, even among policymakers.
I speak from painful experience, of having had many discussions in the past 3 years with scientists and senior officials from different countries. As part of our ReadyMoms work, we make it our business to be informed about projected child mortality figures. I was shocked to find that the VAST majority of those I spoke to, has not taken a closer look at the demographic implications of a pandemic caused by an avian flu virus such as H5N1 which tends to be most lethal to the young. ? …. continued at link ….
Karen,
Great post when you look at population by age (Source: http://www.censusscope.org/us/chart_age.html )overlaied with the fact from the W.H.O. that most deaths are from 10 to 35 years of age. Source: http://www.wpro.who.int/NR/rdonlyres/FD4AC2FD-B7C8-4A13-A32C-6CF328A0C036/0/S4_1113.jpg)
The implications for work force and social security are pressing.
Allen
That’s the first I’ve seen the census scope chart. The WHO chart is one we reference in ReadyMoms. You may be interested in our poster that we’ve used at events,such as the national PTA convention (SanDiego,2008) found here: http://www.newfluwiki2.com/upload/RMA%20PTA%20poster1%20children%20at%20risk.pdf .
The related diary for that convention is at FluWiki, here: http://www.newfluwiki2.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=2552, if you’re interested. But, I thought you might like to see how we used the WHO chart in our display.
The ‘Children at Risk’ factor is a HUGE concern that not a lot of attention has been given to. We, at ReadyMoms are trying to draw some attention to this mighty threat to our younger population. -k