Prime Minister,
I would like you to see the message below, sent to me this morning by Public Health England in response to my email raising concerns about possible Plague outbreaks in the wake of the flooding of various parts of the countryside.
This reply flies in the face of what properly qualified virologists and bacteriologists are saying about the likelihood of a resurgence of Plague, and I am sure that you will have seen the reports in the press and online news services recently in this regard. While I know, as a disabled person, that your government is more than willing to rely upon charlatans and quacks for medical evidence (look at Atos) something as serious as Plague risk is not a subject that any government should be brushing under the carpet with a two-paragraph uninformed and uneducated denial. Or outright lie.
There are still some 200 cases of Plague reported every year in Europe, and a recent one about a young girl in the USA grabbed the headlines. Add to that the ability of viruses and bacteria to mutate very quickly, there most definitely IS a risk within the United Kingdom, as the mutated descendants of the germ-carrying fleas live on the descendants of the rats that cause the outbreaks to flare up. Germ mutation has also been in the news a great deal recently, as fears spread within the medical community about the decreasing effectiveness of antibiotics. Even if our homegrown rats decide to stay away from humans (unlikely, given the state of the British weather) it is worth pointing out that Plague has a variable incubation period within a range of a few days to a few weeks, as shown by Daniel Defoe’s written record of the Plague of 1665. In this age of widespread air travel, therefore, there would be nothing to prevent an infected person climbing onto an aeroplane from, say, Istanbul and becoming the unwitting vector for a medical disaster.
To say I am disappointed by PHE’s laissez faire attitude to the risk, given that the conditions in the UK are currently perfect for the spread of diseases of all kinds, would be a vast understatement. To say I am horrified that a public service organisation would simply brush off such a concern, with a short response that pretty much says “Don’t bother us” is closer to the mark.
What this response from PHE shows me is that your government is very likely unprepared for any outbreak of a serious disease and that you are pretending that if you ignore it, it won’t happen. Just like the floods that will drive rats closer to humans and the manky weather that will have foreign tourists and business-people coughing and sneezing over everyone within five to ten feet of them in the train and Underground stations.
And, of course, once that single infected tourist/marketing manager/migrant sneezes on the plane, the air conditioning will quietly turn his fellow 350 or so travellers into disease vectors as well. If you don;t believe that, just look back over the last few days at reports of two cruise ships that have been hit by widespread sickness. Air conditioning is a carrier and distributor of all manner of germs.
The fact is that whether it starts within the UK, or is imported from Europe, the weather both here and there is – judging by historical records – perfect for the rise of a major pandemic. China has just reported that a new strain of Bird Flu is killing people there, and that it now has the ability to transmit between humans. I can’t find the relevant news article that I saw yesterday, but the designation H10N9 rings a faint bell. That germ has mutated enormously quickly in the last ten years from the basic H1N1 variant that started the whole Bird Flu ball rolling.
So, perhaps PHE and DfH should stop resting on their unearned laurels and start publishing information on what to do in the event of public suspicion about rashes, lumps and bumps, and fevers, as well as letting said public know what will be done to try and stop any major disease outbreaks before they can reach epidemic, or even pandemic, proportions.
Or are you and your government simply content to rely on chalk-marked doors, body wagons and lime pits, and let the population thin out while you hold meetings about when to have meetings about the problem once it’s already happened? Or do you plan to have the Army go in and slaughter infected populations and burn them on massive pyres as happens with Foot & Mouth outbreaks among cattle?
Do any of you play the violin, by any chance?
Sincerely,
Darren Lynch
Sent: Thursday, February 06, 2014 12:08 PMSubject: Your email to the Department of Health
Dear Mr Lynch,
Thank you for your email of 28 January copied to the Department of Health. Your email has been passed to Public Health England and I have been asked to reply.
Plague is not indigenous to the UK and does not pose a risk to the British population.
Yours sincerely,
Finbar Gibbons
Finbar Gibbons I Correspondence and Public Enquiries Officer
Public Health England I Wellington House
133-155 Waterloo Road I SE1 8UG
