Progress: Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future

by Johan Norberg

Following the H1N1 flu in 2009, a totally new version of the virus from 1918, we saw the quickest response to a pandemic in history. The internet made it possible to track the outbreak and facilitated co-operation between institutions, scientists and health workers around the world. After American scientists got a sample of the virus from a patient in mid-April 2009, the gene sequencing was done in just one day. Within a week the full H1N1 virus genome was published online, for the whole world to use. This made it possible for test developers around the world to modify existing tests and find new cases. Before the month was over, new test kits were sent to clinical and public health laboratories. At the same time, drug companies used this information, new cell culture technologies and other new breakthroughs to start working on vaccines. In June 2009 the WHO declared that H1N1 was a pandemic. Just three months later several manufacturers had already completed vaccine development and started producing it. By December, over fifty countries had started vaccine programmes.