Had bird flu trigger the next pandemic?
If the bird flu could become more effective in transmitting from animals to people, and then from individuals to individuals, then it would start to spread, said Prof. Ooi.
He noted that there have been three pandemics in the last decade, the largest of which was in 1918, which caused the death of about 60 million individuals.
In a Reuters report from July 1st, a leading scientist expressed concern that bird flu monitoring and testing gaps may put the world in a significant step backwards in a new pandemic.
Singapore should not be taking things for granted and should be prepared with plans in place that can be immediately ramped up, according to Prof. Ooi, even though it is currently free of the bird flu.  ,
For one, he noted that Singapore and its neighbors may build up such capabilities so there is no need to “queue up” buying jabs from Europe or North America as the COVID- 19 pandemic demonstrated that vaccines can be produced immediately.
The scholar also emphasized the value of making first firefighters and disease control experts informed of what they need to do rather than “make it up” as and when a crisis occurs.
He argued that we must keep talking to the populace to make sure they are informed of what they need to do when it does occur.
He has observed that people are “more or less slowly sliding back” to pre-COVID days, when they did n’t care as much about getting sick or taking time off from work.
If the bird flu turns out to be a major public health issue, according to Prof. Ooi, one may wish that the affected people” can very quickly move up to some of those precautions.”