The avian flu originates in far-off lands, and the American public’s only access to information about it is through the media. The news has yet to hit home. We knew when millions of chickens were killed in Asia, but we didn’t panic because there was no noticeable taste difference in our chicken McNuggets.

Very few Americans realize that scientists and government officials from all over the world have been pulling their hair out trying to come up with the best defense against a potential avian flu pandemic.

Governments and organizations are quietly mobilizing for the worst-case scenario. The government has already stockpiled enough vaccines for 200 million people, and in 2005 the Center for Disease Control awarded $11.4 million to companies for the development of a test to diagnose patients with the viral strain known as H5NI.

The media has remained relatively silent as well. In the absence of an immediate threat, there is no need to create mass hysteria. But the potential for a pandemic, nonetheless, is there.

Although localized, the bird flu’s jump from poultry to people has resulted in hundreds of deaths across Europe, Asia and even Canada over the years. If the disease manages to make a wide-scale jump from bird to man before the appropriate provisions are made and vaccines are distributed, we could be in big trouble.

According to the World Health Organization, pandemic outbreaks of influenza are to be expected two to three times a century. The last influenza pandemic occurred in 1918 and killed almost 50 million people.

Scientists fear that this means we’re about due.

And the avian flu, the deadly H5N1 strand in particular, is the most likely disease to cause a pandemic because of its ability to mutate.

For college students who share cramped living quarters, classrooms, gym facilities and various bodily fluids, this is a scary thought. Syracuse University certainly wouldn’t be immune, although students aren’t fazed.

Jonathan Jennings, junior finance and entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises major, said that he thinks that there is nothing to worry about.

‘Worrying about this kind of thing is the government’s job,’ he said. ‘Wash your hands, brush your teeth and don’t sleep around. That’s my motto.’

Maybe people aren’t worried because no one is talking about it.

Nobody wants to cry wolf.

But some people are thinking about it. It’s rolling around in the heads of our nation’s brightest scientists and behind closed doors. It’s being debated by our trusted politicians – not splashed across the news.

With all this said, there is no need to invest in a gas mask or a plastic bubble. The right people realize that this is out there and are working to protect us. But if the government cares about this, so should we. Even if you don’t hear about it every day.

Meghan Overdeep is a featured columnist whose columns appear Fridays in The Daily Orange. E-mail her at meoverde@syr.edu.

Published on March 29, 2007 at 12:00 pm