IT is now winter in the Southern Hemisphere - it's time for coughs and sneezes. Unfortunately this year's influenza is Mexican flu, the H1N1 virus. The rapid growth in infections in Australia in recent weeks has seen more than 1,200 people struck down. In the last seven days the infection rate has quadrupled, causing the Word Health Organization to say that it is close to calling a Grade 6 pandemic. Experts are predicting that what is happening now in the Southern Hemisphere's cold weather indicates the virus' likely progress when it is the Northern Hemisphere's turn for winter. So far the spread of H1N1 appears to have been limited because it broke out in the Northern spring. This may also be why, with the still puzzling exception of Mexico, there have been so few deaths so far. The majority of infections, including the handful here in the Kingdom, has been benign. The progress of Mexican flu in Australia will, therefore, be watched closely. An Australian government minister has warned that the contagious respiratory condition would "inevitably cost lives." But there remain those who are counseling that despite the apparent lethality of the virus, particularly among some healthy young people, rather than the young and old who would normally be expected to succumb more easily; Mexican flu should not be a cause of panic. Indeed, it could be argued that it represents a major opportunity for scientists to study the global spread of a contagion and work out how to try to limit and contain a virus that is truly deadly. Such a virus, we are told, is only a matter of time. The last lethal influenza epidemic came in the years after World War I and inflicted more casualties than the conflict itself. The world then was a far less mobile place but the movement of discharged soldiers heading back to civilian life and refugees returning home undoubtedly contributed to the spread of the virus. Now people move around the world with far greater ease and speed than a century ago. The initial spread of Mexican flu can be traced with a world airline timetable. It is clear that in the modern world it is incumbent on health authorities in every country to be vigilant and transparent in the way they watch for and deal with the outbreak of a new contagion. Never again can anyone countenance the initial behavior of the Chinese authorities in their misguided attempt to cover up the outbreak of SARS in 2003. National pride cannot enter any calculations concerning a truly international threat. Mexican flu may still turn out to be a killer on the scale of Spanish flu almost 100 years ago. But the evidence still seems to suggest that it will not. Nevertheless the way it has spread so rapidly around the globe and targeted those who would seem least vulnerable ought to be providing an invaluable lesson to health authorities everywhere as well as to the World Health Authority, to help them meet a truly deadly virus.
North Korea's cruel verdict
THE Independent yesterday commented on two American journalists under detention in North Korea, saying in part: North Korea's bankrupt justice system has delivered a cruel verdict - 12 years of hard labor - to the American journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling. After a detention of nearly three months in perhaps the world's most repressive country, they have already paid a huge and unfair price for doing their job. They should be released immediately. Ms. Ling, 32, and Ms. Lee, 36, were detained on March 17 by North Korean soldiers patrolling the border between China and North Korea. They were employed by Current TV, a San Francisco-based media company that was co-founded by Al Gore, the former vice president. News accounts said they were reporting on North Korean refugees who had fled the country - a highly sensitive issue - although Ling's sister told ABC News that the women were working on a report about the trafficking of women from North Korea to China. Whatever the case, they do not deserve to be sent to a brutal labor camp where, according to international human rights activists and North Korean defectors, detainees endure beatings, hunger and inhumane workloads. With no access to lawyers or due process, the two journalists did not have anything approaching a fair chance to defend themselves. We don't know how much their ordeal is being driven by North Korea's succession saga or escalating tensions with the United States over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program. We know that there is no excuse for their detention or this outrageous sentence. North Korea has shown leniency to Americans in the past. In 1996, on a drunken dare, Evan Hunziker swam across the Yalu River from China and was accused of spying and was detained for three months. He was freed after Congressman Bill Richardson of New Mexico traveled to Pyongyang. We hope the Obama administration is working the few diplomatic levers available. It should urge China, North Korea's main food and fuel supplier, to speak up for the two journalists and send an American envoy to make the case directly in Pyongyang. Failing to free them would only worsen relations with President Obama, who came into office committed to reviving negotiations, and add to growing calls in Washington - and around the world - for tougher sanctions.
