Will a pandemic ever kill millions again?
The Inquiry
BBC
4.6 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 13 February 2020
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Coronavirus outbreak in China has been declared a public health emergency of international concern. It is raising fears of a global disease pandemic. In the past viral infections have killed millions. Possibly the worst ever pandemic was the 1918-19 flu, which spread just as the First World War was coming to an end. Estimates of the death toll now range between 50 and 100 million. At the upper range that means it was more deadly than both World Wars put together. So could another pandemic emerge today and kill millions? How might it happen and how prepared are we to confront it?
The world is a very different place to 100 years ago. Scientific and public health advances do mean some parts of the world are more prepared but our ways of living could make us more susceptible to a new virus.
Speaking to a leading virologist, a disease modeller, a public health policy expert and a senior African health official, Ben Chu asks where the virus threat might come from, how fast it could spread, what containment policies work and whether the world is ready.
Presenter: Ben Chu Producer: John Murphy
(image: Scientist working with a dangerous virus in the laboratory. Credit: Getty Creative)
Transcript
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| 0:12.7 | Welcome to the inquiry on the BBC World Service. I'm Ben Chu. |
| 0:14.1 | Each week, one question, four army officer, was proud of her job. |
| 0:28.1 | In 1914, shortly after the outbreak of the First World War, she had joined the volunteer aid detachment as a nurse, |
| 0:34.4 | taking care of injured soldiers returning to Britain from the Western Front in France. |
| 0:39.3 | But in the autumn of 1918, as the Great War was drawing to an end a strange new nursery |
| 0:44.9 | rhyme began doing the rounds in schools. |
| 0:47.0 | I had a little bird. His name was him that I opened the winter an influenza. |
| 0:57.0 | Phyllis noticed more and more soldiers coming back with breathing difficulties. |
| 1:03.5 | No one was sure what the disease was, but it was deadly. |
| 1:08.9 | Some of the victims would have a dark blue or purple flush that spread over their bodies. Their lungs filled up with |
| 1:14.9 | fluid and pus. They died very quickly. On the 28th of October, Phyllis, previously |
| 1:22.4 | in excellent health, came down with chills and the headache. |
| 1:26.5 | So as not to infect her mother and sisters, she immediately moved out of the family home in London |
| 1:30.8 | and into lodgings. Two days later, aged just 20, she was dead. |
| 1:37.0 | It's estimated that between 50 and 100 million people died in the 1918-19-19-19 |
| 1:47.1 | influenza pandemic known as Spanish flu. |
| 1:50.3 | That would mean more people were wiped out by that disease outbreak |
| 1:53.2 | than were killed in both of the world wars of the 20th century. |
| 1:58.6 | With the spread of coronavirus from Wuhan in China and as the world struggles with the lethal legacy of HIV |
| 2:04.7 | AIDS we're asking will a pandemic ever kill millions again? Part 1, a wildfire. |
| 2:17.0 | A wildfire. |
| 2:21.0 | Viruses are the simplest organisms, if you like, in the world. |
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