Is a Flu Pandemic Imminent?-- Part 6: "How Bad Flu Can Be"

This newspaper article is from 2018.

Medical science  has continued to   improve its response to influenza.

Most developed nations are sitting on stockpiles of antivirals that work against flu, and new antiviral drugs are in the research pipeline according to Dr. Nicole Bouvier.  "If the pandemic doesn't happen for another five years, we'll have a whole other set of drugs that work in a different way against flu."

Other research has focused on new technologies that can cut vaccine development time down from six months to two months,  she added.  "We'll be able to churn out vaccine much more quickly than we were in the last pandemic in 2009."

Overall, Bouvier believes health officials are better prepared today because the 1918 influenza occurred.

"Having gone through it once, having seen how bad it could be, has made people in the public health and governmental sphere aware of how bad flu can be," she said.  "That may be the biggest lesson we have learned, to not underestimate how bad flu can be."

Well, I Guess a Flu Epidemic Was Imminent Two Years Ago.   --RoadDog