Since the global outbreak of the swine flu pandemic was detected in March 2009, it has claimed over 7,860 lives in 206 countries and territories. Compared to the localised SARS epidemic of 2002-03 (774 deaths in 24 countries) and the avian flu influenza of 2004-07 (262 deaths in 12 countries), swine flu has stoked collective fears of entire humanity.
Not even fundamentalist Islam or major wars can match the combined panic that set in when the H1N1 virus began causing mass casualties. The initial shock jolted people into making painful adjustments to daily routines?donning masks, repeatedly washing hands and avoiding the kiss in greetings. The world?s ways and even social relations, it seemed, had to adapt to cope with this serious threat.
Nine months have passed since the first wave of swine flu waxed and waned. Horror stories that the Spanish influenza pandemic, which killed 50 million people in 1918, could repeat have now lost traction.
One reason for swine flu not being as destructive as its awful predecessor during World War I is the universalisation of the idea of rapid and effective state intervention to contain, isolate and eliminate pandemics. The emergence of the welfare and developmental state in the post-World War II period elevated the importance of public health as a major priority for governments.
Yet, the first wave of swine flu in the last nine months has shown that not all governments uniformly lived up to the expectations of squelching this major threat to public health. Some have done exceedingly well in restricting the spread of the virus, while others have stumbled at the cost of precious lives.
Just because 2009 has not been as devastating as 1918 does not justify ignoring the shortcomings of certain countries in mounting vigorous and timely missions against swine flu.
One egregious instance of state failure to adequately combat the virus is Argentina, which holds the record for the most infected country with nearly 1,50,000 cases and 600 deaths (14.95 deaths per million of population).
The government of this South American country has earned the unenviable reputation of behaving criminally negligently at a time of social peril. When H1N1 hit the roof, the government of President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner was too busy with petty politicking. Kirchner had preponed national congressional elections by four months to improve the chances of her husband, former President Nestor Kirchner, winning from his constituency. This power couple was keen to use congressional elections as a springboard for one of them returning to the presidency in 2011.
Overruling the advice of several medical specialists and her own health minister, Kirchner refused to declare a state of emergency in the nick of time to tackle proliferating swine flu cases, as such an announcement would have pushed the elections back and hurt her ambitious husband?s career.
Britain had a similar misfortune, of facing the peak of the pandemic just as the MPs? expenses scandal shook the government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Instead of launching the public health system on war footing to stem H1N1, Brown was preoccupied with survival in the wake of resignations of many of his cabinet members and dipping popularity ratings.
The House of Lords later reprimanded Brown?s government for delaying anti-flu helpline systems that could have prevented the unnecessary loss of lives. Of the 300-odd deaths from swine flu in Europe, it is a matter of shame that the UK accounts for over 180.
In contrast to callous toying with the lives of citizens under the vicissitudes of Argentine and British politics, Mexico?the country of origin of the virus?was braver and more resolute in arresting the spread of H1N1. It took forceful and costly steps, including a total shutdown of public life, to slow down the spread of the pandemic.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon was actually advised by some aides to hide the real extent of the crisis, lest it expose his government?s unpreparedness and harm the country?s tourist inflows. Luckily, he nixed the obfuscating impulse and adopted a proactive stance that did incur short-term pain but simultaneously helped the country emerge safer.
China, too, resorted to tough anti-flu measures like quarantines, medical detentions, closure of educational institutions etc in a timely fashion and is reaping the dividends of a sufficiently-smothered virus. China has experienced only 30 deaths from swine flu, far fewer than the 505 deaths in India, which is comparatively in the same population bracket.
Unlike its old avatar, which used to cover up health and natural disasters to deflect criticism of the communist party, the China of 2009 was more transparent in admitting risks of swine flu infection and dedicated itself to rooting them out.
Some observers credit the success of countries like China and Cuba in robustly mitigating disasters to their authoritarianism, which can bypass individual freedoms and objections. The problem with this argument is that there are many examples of dictatorial regimes that never bother to succour populations during pandemics. Even elected democratic regimes like South Africa?s delayed for years the provision of antiretroviral drugs to treat HIV/AIDS, costing millions of saveable lives, courtesy social conservatism and homophobia of political leaders.
Responses to pandemics are thus not functions of regime type or levels of economic development. They rest squarely upon the amorphous but extremely significant factor of political will. Countries where the political class is willing to sacrifice immediate, narrow self-interests in order to protect citizens from grave illness are luckier.
With the WHO sounding the alarm bells of a possible second wave of swine flu in Central Asia and Eastern Europe, mustering political will to intervene decisively remains the key to averting another 1918-scale catastrophe.
The author is associate professor of world politics at the OP Jindal Global University