What Happened to Pandemics?

Michael Hässig
(University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland)

Abstract: A pandemic is defined as an epidemic infectious disease that spreads through human and/or animal populations in large regions or the entire world. It is interesting, but at the same time comforting, to note that the effects of recent disease outbreaks that were declared pandemics such as bovine spongiform encephalitis (BSE), avian and porcine influenza or severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) turned out to be not as catastrophic as predicted by specialists and public media. As a consequence, stakeholders and some members of the general public are losing confidence in scientific health information. A team of experts has focused on the problem created by the fact that pandemics have been explained to the public primarily by paraclinicians such as virologists, bacteriologists, molecular scientists and pathologists. However, one may get the impression that their true interest in pandemics is often overshadowed by a welcome opportunity to explain the importance of their research and to secure funding for the future. It is felt that emerging potential pandemics should be introduced to the general population by public health specialists in order to regain the trust of the former. These specialists are expected to have a better holistic view of endemic disease processes and should be able to build trust even when information is weak and fragile.

Key words: epidemic; one health; information; evidence based medicine

JEL code: I18