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Risk of global epidemics real: biochemist

In the absence of vaccines, a worldwide plague could potentially kill hundreds of millions of people, or a highly contagious virus like measles could once again run rampant, says biochemist Terry Pearson.
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Microbiologist Fran Nano is one of the speakers at a panel on epidemics Thrursday at the University of Victoria. Nano studies bacterial pathogens to develop new vaccines for deadly bacterial diseases.

In the absence of vaccines, a worldwide plague could potentially kill hundreds of millions of people, or a highly contagious virus like measles could once again run rampant, says biochemist Terry Pearson.

Pearson will moderate a panel entitled Understanding Epidemics: Why do they happen? tonight as part of IdeaFest this week at the University of Victoria.

Expert UVic panelists will explore epidemics from a variety of perspectives — historical, sociological and molecular.

Pearson, who teaches immunology, microbiology and biochemistry and has expertise in tropical diseases, said the panel was inspired by public interest in a recent measles outbreak.

The panel discussion will look at once-controlled diseases that are returning as vaccination rates wane, as well as emerging infectious diseases, including Ebola and mosquito-borne diseases dengue fever and malaria, that have a foothold in some parts of the world.

“There are some pretty nasty viruses and we want to keep an eye out for them and catch them early,” Pearson said.

Some parasitic diseases have evolved to live in animals and humans for millions of years, and have the potential to spread with population growth and increased air travel to remote areas.

For infectious diseases such as Ebola, drug companies and academics are racing to produce rapid diagnostic tests and vaccines, Pearson said.

At the same time, he said, there are controlled viruses such as measles that could once again thrive if highly effective vaccines are not used.

“With certain diseases which were well-controlled in the past, like measles and polio, there is an increasing number of people who haven’t been vaccinated,” Pearson said.

The U.S. Centres for Disease Control says 140 people from seven U.S. states between Dec. 28 and Feb. 27 were reported to have measles. The ongoing outbreak is linked to Disneyland in California.

CDC scientists say the measles virus in this outbreak is identical to the virus type that caused a large measles outbreak in the Philippines last year.

“There’s the very real possibility that these once really controlled diseases start to spread because we don’t have so-called herd immunity,” Pearson said.

Herd immunity is the number of people in a population who need to be vaccinated to prevent spread from one person to another. It varies for different diseases.

For measles, it’s more than 95 per cent, Pearson said.

A virulent strain can be catastrophic or deadly. “Who wants to have some blindness or deafness or a kid getting sick and dying?” Pearson said. “We treat it too casually.”

Vaccination, along with advances in clean water and sanitation, have saved millions of lives, he said.

Pearson, 69, saw the effects of an epidemic first-hand as a young teenager growing up in Vernon, “when polio was spreading like mad.”

“I remember the fear my parents had about it,” said Pearson, who had three or four friends who contracted the disease. Pearson and his siblings were not able to play with their friends or visit local swimming holes and pools during the outbreak.

Just three weeks ago, when he was in Kenya, Pearson saw many people his age “crippled very badly by polio” because they didn’t have the means to be vaccinated.

When Pearson tries to impress upon his students the importance of vaccines and immunization, he points to the great influenza epidemic of 1914-18, which killed 50 million to 100 million people in a worldwide population of less than two billion.

Now with a worldwide population of more than seven billion and increased air travel, he said, “there is nothing to suggest a plague that would kill hundreds of millions people couldn’t spread again.”

The panel is set for 7 to 9 p.m. in room 125 of UVic’s engineering and computer sciences building.

ceharnett@timescolonist.com