Bird Flu Movie Sparks Panic Calls And Enquiries

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Main Category: Bird Flu / Avian Flu
Also Included In: Public Health;  Psychology / Psychiatry
Article Date: 10 May 2006 - 8:00 PDT

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After watching the ABC movie 'Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America' last night, telephone helplines from all over the USA have been receiving calls from anxious viewers. At Medical News Today we have received 112 emails from people in the USA with questions ranging from 'How could other countries be so selfish as to withhold vaccines?' to 'I woke up with a temperature and a cough this morning, do you think I may have caught the bird flu?'

As the movie was pure fiction, not a documentary, and bird flu has not yet arrived in the USA, it baffles me how people can be angry at other countries or wonder whether they are infected.

Possibly, the movie may have awoken public awareness. The trouble is, 'Fatal Contact' depicts such an unlikely scenario that one wonders what kind of preparations people will now be making as a result of watching the film. If a group of people next door start coughing, will people who live in that street rush to the local supermarket and stock up on vital supplies and medicines?

The world is facing a probable flu pandemic. The H5N1 bird flu virus strain will probably mutate. However, it will not spread like wildfire the minute one man flies in from Hong Kong to America and coughs.

It is important that everyone who saw the film realises it was a dramatization, a piece of fiction - not a documentary. THERE IS NO BIRD FLU IN THE USA AT PRESENT. THERE IS NO HUMAN FLU PANDEMIC ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD AT PRESENT.

Surely, a well prepared documentary, with expert virologists and other health care professionals, would have served the public better than a movie showing piles of bodies being burned, old people starving, panic and xenophobia.

If I am in charge of a school and want to teach my pupils how to prepare in case of a fire, what do I do? Do I show them a worse-case scenario - a movie of people being burnt, firemen dying, explosions, screams, lots of death and total panic? Or should I arrange some fire drills, make sure everyone knows where the escape routes are, get an expert in to talk to the children and explain about closing doors and windows, etc?

If a sick bird, infected with H5N1, were found in the USA today, how would people react after having seen the film? Would their reaction be orderly and attentive, or would it be more anxious than if they had not seen the film? Is the movie more likely to trigger panic buying in pharmacies and supermarkets as a result of finding one sick bird?

An infected swan was found in Scotland about one month ago. Initially, the public's level of anxiety was heightened. However, the poultry industry did not crash from one day to the next, shops and pharmacies were not stripped bare by panic buyers. How would the British have reacted if the movie had been shown nationwide one day before the sick swan had been found? Would it have been the same?

Written by: Christian Nordqvist
Editor: Medical News Today
Copyright: Medical News Today
Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today