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A still from a scene shot in Hong Kong featured in new Netflix documentary series Pandemic: How to Prevent an Outbreak. Deadly bird flu first jumped the species barrier to infect humans in the city, and it dealt with the Sars outbreak in 2003. Photo: Netflix

Pandemic, Netflix series about doctors, scientists fighting viral disease outbreaks, carries a dire warning

  • Another flu pandemic is inevitable, documentary series says, and points to China as the place to watch for the emergence of deadly new influenza viruses
  • Series moves from Spanish flu that killed 100 million people in 1918 to current battle to contain Ebola virus in Congo to anti-vaxxer parents
Netflix

When the Netflix docuseries Pandemic: How to Prevent an Outbreak began streaming last week, it landed just in time for the peak flu season. It also coincidentally aired as a deadly new coronavirus first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan put health authorities worldwide on alert.

Wuhan and several other Chinese cities are in lockdown over the Lunar New Year holiday, when hundreds of millions of Chinese usually travel for family reunions and breaks.

The docuseries carries a dire warning: “When we talk about another flu pandemic happening, it’s not a matter of if, but when.”

More than two dozen people are so far known to have died from the Wuhan coronavirus and hundreds have been infected. Almost all China’s provinces have reported cases of infection. About 20 cases have also been reported beyond mainland China’s borders, in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and countries including South Korea, Thailand, Japan and the United States.

Pandemic begins with a search in a suspected mass grave site in Butler County in the US state of Pennsylvania that dates from 1918. Soldiers spread the Spanish flu virus when they returned home from World War I and the pandemic wiped out up to 100 million people worldwide, far more than the eight million killed in the war.

The docuseries evokes vivid memories of lethal virus outbreaks in recent history that have killed hundreds of people. They include two other outbreaks that originated in China: the H5N1 bird flu strain that jumped the species barrier to humans in Hong Kong in 1997 and killed six people locally; and severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars), which was discovered in 2003 and killed about 800, mostly in Hong Kong and China.

Then there’s the Ebola virus, Middle East respiratory syndrome (Mers) and seasonal flu.

The six episodes in the first season of Pandemic tell the stories of doctors and pandemic control experts who fight and contain viral outbreaks. While medical professionals see viruses as a common enemy, they are also blamed for the spread of disease.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo in West Africa, for example, mistrust of health workers fighting to contain an Ebola outbreak, including a belief that they introduced the virus, has fuelled deadly attacks by militants on treatment centres. More than 300 attacks on health care staff were recorded last year, resulting in six deaths and 70 others being wounded, according to the global health charity Medecins Sans Frontieres.

The documentary features Dr Michel Yao, Ebola incident manager at the World Health Organisation, who works to build trust with and educate local citizens about Ebola prevention.

Children hand out anti-vaccination fliers in Manhattan, New York. Photo: Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images

Health workers elsewhere also meet resistance trying to contain outbreaks. In the US, the medical sector is battling a reluctance or refusal to vaccinate.

Vaccine hesitancy was one of the 10 biggest threats to global health in 2019, according to the World Health Organisation. Complacency, difficulty in accessing vaccines, and lack of confidence are key reasons some people choose not to be immunised, or to have their children immunised, against deadly viruses.

Pandemic interviews a mother of five in the US state of Oregon who is “anti-vaxx”. She joins other parents to protest against proposed legislation that excludes children from school if they are not immunised.

The Oakland Municipal Auditorium in Oakland, California, was used as a temporary hospital during the 1918 Spanish flu outbreak. Photo: Underwood Archives/Getty Images

They believe vaccines are dangerous and that parents have the freedom to make choices for their children.

The production team also travelled to Vietnam, India, Guatemala, Lebanon and Egypt to talk to doctors and scientists who are working to battle unknown, but expected, future pandemics.

Medical professionals tell how their personal, family and religious lives have been affected by their career.

Dr Dennis Carroll, director of the emerging threats unit of the US Agency for International Development, says it is important scientists battling new viruses keep a close eye on China. Photo: Netflix

Dr Dennis Carroll, director of the Emerging Threats Unit at the US Agency for International Development, tells the filmmakers that it is important to keep a close eye on China.

“While we can’t predict where the next influenza pandemic is going to come from, there are certain places that need particular attention – and China is one of those. It’s the place where we have seen the emergence of virtually all of the deadly influenza viruses over the last half-century,” he says.

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