Miscellany

The movie Contagion, which opened in theaters in September, tells the story of a deadly virus and the panic that follows when people around the world begin dying from its effects.

While that film tells a fictional story, the risks we all face from emerging infectious diseases are real, writes W. Ian Lipkin in the New York Times.

Lipkin, a professor of epidemiology and a professor of neurology and pathology at Columbia University, served as a technical consultant on the film. While films on such subjects tend to sensationalize a pandemic, for example, Lipkin says that Contagion portrays real risks that are increasing rapidly. He writes: “More than three-quarters of all emerging infectious diseases originate when microbes jump from wildlife to humans. Our vulnerability to such diseases has been heightened by the growth in international travel and the globalization of food production.”

In the film, a woman travels on business to Hong Kong, where she eats meat tainted by contact with a certain animal. The disease spreads via touch and soon affects thousands, killing many.

Lipkin goes on: “In addition, deforestation and urbanization continue to displace wildlife, increasing the probability that wild creatures will come in contact with domesticated animals and humans.”

He and a team of other scientists developed a fictitious virus to be used in the film. For inspiration they drew on “the Nipah virus, which in Malaysia in the late 1990s jumped from bats to pigs to humans, causing respiratory disease and encephalitis and resulting in more than 100 deaths before it was contained by quarantine,” he writes. In the film, the virus is not contained in time by quarantine, and millions die.

Americans (and perhaps others) tend to ignore warnings about such diseases. Many parents refuse to have their children vaccinated for diseases such as measles. Dr. Paul Offit, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases and the director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told Time Magazine he has seen the consequences: “preventable childhood deaths, community outbreaks of outdated diseases and misinformed, angry parents.”

Often people have a mistrust of science and refuse to go along with vaccinations, especially when they’re obligated to by the government.

But in communities where this refusal occurs, outbreaks are starting to occur, says Offit. “We saw that with the whooping-cough epidemic in California this past year [2010]. It was the largest in more than 40 years.”

Offit goes on to tell this story: “In our hospital this past year, we made flu vaccination mandatory. Some people didn’t like that. But we had two children who came into our hospital, both of whom had cancer. They couldn’t be vaccinated because of their chemotherapy, caught influenza while in the hospital and died of that disease. Who is responsible? We think we are, so we took a tougher stance, because we don’t think it’s an inalienable right to transmit a potentially fatal infection to a group of vulnerable, hospitalized children.”

The heroes of Contagion are the scientists and public health professionals who put their lives on the line to develop an anti-virus. At the same time, the film does not make these people saints; some make questionable ethical choices.

Lipkin writes that “we need to recognize that our public health system is underfinanced and overwhelmed.” Further, “more and better coordination is needed among many local, federal and international agencies.”

If we don’t attend to these, Contagion may be more than just a movie.