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Cia predicted outbreak Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/117/nation/CIA_had_idea_of_contagion_and_of_governments_reactions+.shtmlhttp://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/117/nation/CIA_had_idea_of_contagion_and_of_governments_reactions+.shtml
THE FORETHOUGHTS ON A THREAT
CIA had idea of contagion, and of governments' reactions
By John Donnelly, Globe Staff, 4/27/2003
WASHINGTON -- The Central Intelligence Agency predicted more than three years ago that increased international air travel, trade, and tourism would dramatically increase the spread of infectious diseases around the world, and that governments might try to hide the outbreaks for fear of economic losses.
While not predicting with specificity the outbreak of a coronavirus like SARS, an agency National Intelligence Estimate released in January 2000 said that highly infectious respiratory illnesses would pose a grave threat in years to come. ''The next major infectious disease threat to the United States may be, like HIV, a previously unrecognized pathogen,'' the report said.
The report also warned that governments had a powerful economic incentive against fully reporting outbreaks, which has occured with SARS in China, where officials initially hid the seriousness of the spread of the virus.
''Some countries hide or understate their infectious disease problems for reasons of international prestige and fear of economic losses,'' it said.
The CIA forecast was one of a handful of reports released a few years ago that spotlighted not only the coming spread of new infectious diseases but that also warned of public health shortcomings in trying to stem the movement of microbes.
The Institute of Medicine and the World Health Organization, among others, both issued sobering warnings about the coming dangers.
Several health specialists, inside and outside the US government, said that they remained concerned that SARS could continue to spread rapidly and that health-surveillance systems would not respond quickly enough.
''The spread of SARS calls attention to the need for a very nimble and active system of international surveillance and collaboration among health authorities in generating both diagnoses and responses,'' a senior US government official said on condition of anonymity.
While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health are taking lead medical and epidemiological roles on SARS, US officials from more than a dozen departments and agencies have participated in meetings in the past week around Washington to exchange ideas and prepare for worst-case scenarios, US officials said. Two classified reports on potential economic and health effects of SARS have been written by the CIA and the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research.
Several officials pointed to the 2000 CIA report as evidence that people in the health field knew that deadly outbreaks were coming, and that they would eventually face a pandemic.
Recent trends show why the officials were so certain. From 1973 to 1999, 29 diseases appeared globally, a rate of more than one a year, according to an interagency working group appointed by the White House.
And just as infectious diseases are surging worldwide, global trade has increased 1,000 percent since World War II -- 60 percent of it in the Asia-Pacific region alone. And meanwhile, 1.5 billion travelers board airplanes every year.
The CIA report, put out by the National Intelligence Council, paid attention to the dangers of airborne pathogens, including tuberculosis and influenza. On influenza, it said, ''it is not a question of whether, but when, the next killer pandemic will occur.''
SARS, which has symptoms described as flu-like, is caused by a previously unknown member of the coronavirus family, according to the WHO.
''SARS is the most visible example of something that is happening everywhere with infectious diseases,'' said Jim Yong Kim, a public health specialist at Harvard and one of the authors of a 1999 Institute of Medicine report on globalization and infectious disease. ''There is a convergence of factors here -- the incredible infectiousness and virulence of this bug and air travel. Remember, flu epidemics of the past were carried by a boat. This is air travel.''
In the past decade, there have been outbreaks of West Nile and Lyme disease in North America; Ross River virus in Australia; the Avian flu in Hong Kong; foot and mouth disease in Taiwan; the Nipah virus in Malaysia; bubonic plague in India; and mad-cow disease in Britain.
In addition, diseases are mutating into more virulent and drug-resistent forms. One of the greatest concerns of health specialists is the possibility of widespread multidrug resistant TB.
Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush administration and the WHO have increased work on health surveillance around the world to help defend against biological or chemical attacks.
But specialists say that the project is still in its infancy, and that health systems are not prepared to deal with a major outbreak of a new infectious disease. Several pointed to the strains caused by the anthrax scares in the United States as well as the stress on health care workers now dealing with SARS.
''In the US, there is not enough public health infrastructure to deal with something like a big SARS outbreak,'' Kim said. ''This is a result of years of underfunding and understaffing for public health offices. We are in a war with microbes and the microbes are winning -- handily.''
Jennifer Leaning, a professor of international health at Harvard, said surveillance systems were not at fault in the SARS outbreak.
''The problem with SARS is that it orginated in China, in a relatively closed and defensive political system that was not open to reporting to the world community what they knew was going on,'' Leaning said. ''That was our vulnerability here. If there is a bright side to this, China is beginning to deal with this more openly.''
Nils Daulaire, president of the Global Health Council, said that many countries might have handled the situation as China did. But, he said, eventually surveillance systems will ''pick up a disease when it spreads, as happened in Singapore with SARS.''
Daulaire credited the earlier work of the WHO, the CDC, the CIA, and other agencies in alerting governments to the dangers of infectious diseases.
''If this had happened five or six years ago,'' he said, ''we'd be in much deeper trouble than we are in today.''
John Donnelly can be reached at donnelly@globe.com
This story ran on page A18 of the Boston Globe on 4/27/2003.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.
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