Zawaya

Influenza A, between public health concerns and business logic

By: Mohammed Cherkaoui

The Moroccan Ministry of Health has officially announced in early October that if an H1N1 influenza pandemic was to break out in the country, 9 million Moroccans could be affected, of which 900,000 would require hospitalization and 30,000 would die.

These statistical projections which are based on mathematical models, may also apply to other Maghreb countries due to the similarities in environmental, social and health conditions. These figures help health departments get ready in terms of mobilizing human resources, allocating supplementary budgets, deploying infrastructure, and preparing hospital beds and emergency services to work 24h a day; but all this does not alter the fact that an influenza A pandemic is a lucrative market for the pharmaceutical industry.

The proof lies in the companies’ frantic race to be the first both in the market of antiviral drugs for which neither the effectiveness is proved nor the side effects are known, and in the vaccine market. Another indication about the greed that prevails in the medicine market is that the period of recrudescence of the swine flu coincides with that of the seasonal flu (October-November), which prompted the laboratory that produces the flu vaccine to announce that its vaccine would also work against the H1N1 influenza as well. This presents an aberration that has been denounced by scientific bodies.

Moreover, the prospect of an influenza A pandemic should be taken seriously as a public health concern, by organizing training sessions for health professionals in order to achieve an efficient support for patients, and also by organizing large-scale awareness campaigns on the simplest acts of hygiene; these measures will have a positive impact on the economy by reducing the duration of hospitalization of patients and reducing sick leave absenteeism from work and school.

But the other side of the coin, commercially speaking, which is positive this time, is that the big players in vaccine production can reach their limits in terms of meeting the global demand for vaccines against influenza A.

Given the urgency of the pandemic, such a situation would break the monopoly and allow small structures to step into the breach in order to ensure a local or even regional production of vaccines against swine flu, as is the case for Tunisia. This might as well inaugurate a new era of independence vis-à-vis the major producers of drugs and vaccines.