It is the most effective and ingenious way to spread a virus around the world – wild migratory birds. Thus, the extremely lethal H5N1 is inexorably spreading from country to country around the earth; as wild fowl spread the virus to domestic birds and in some cases domestic birds pass the infection to humans.
Recent reports of the H5N1 outbreak show that the virus has spread from Southeast Asia all the way to Europe; as far north as Denmark and Sweden. In the Middle East Israel has reported that hundreds of farm raised birds have died from the disease.
So far, though, most countries have acted quickly to cull infected flocks in an effort to contain the outbreak. However, it is feared that the poorer nations of Africa will not be able to do so. Niger, for example, the poorest nation in the world, lacks basic equipment such as gloves and masks for workers in close proximity to infected poultry. The problem is that the more contact that the virus has with humans the more likely it becomes that it will acquire the ability to spread among people. It is a disaster in the making.
The bird flu has already jumped species, infecting cats. Experts fear it is only a matter of time until the bird flu crosses over and becomes a pandemic. One such expert said has gone on record to say he feels that the chances for a pandemic are about 50-50.
Particularly worrisome, the Center for Disease Control informs us that the H5 strain of virus has never infected humans before and therefore our race has no inherent immunity to it. That is probably one reason why the virus is so lethal. And the report also suggests that there is some evidence that the virus is gradually acquiring the ability to pass from person to person, which is why “family clusters,” that is families with more than one infected member, are being closely monitored.
In a worst case scenario, CNN states that an Avian Flu pandemic could kill over 100 million people and cost 4 trillion dollars. Of course, no one really knows. But due to the lethality of this particular strain of virus, and other factors such as the ease of international travel, the potential certainly exists for a catastrophic pandemic to sweep the globe in a very short period of time.
Pestilence is, of course, one of the features of the sign of Christ’s presence – along with wars, food shortages and earthquakes.
Strangely, though, the Watchtower apparently does not attach any significance to the growing threat of the world’s worst pandemic; a pestilence that would far surpass the deadly Spanish flu of 1918. It would seem that the Watchtower is not even sure what defines a pestilence. For example, the Society states in their recently published Keep on the Watch brochure: “Pestilence, that is, widespread epidemics of infectious disease, is also part of the sign given by Jesus. Following World War I, an epidemic of influenza claimed over 21,000,000 lives. Unlike fairly localized plagues in ages past, it touched nations earth wide as well as remote islands. AIDS is now sweeping the globe, and such plagues as TB, malaria, river blindness, and Chagas’ disease persist in developing nations.”
Elsewhere the Watchtower has stated that cancer and heart disease are a modern pestilence. For example, in the April 15th, 1982, Watchtower, we read: “Right after World War I more people died of the Spanish flu than had died of any disease epidemic in the history of mankind. The death toll was some 21 million people! Yet pestilence and disease continue to rage. Millions die each year from heart trouble and cancer. Venereal disease is spreading rapidly. Other terrible diseases occur in country after country.”
As defined by the Watchtower a pestilence is a “widespread epidemic of infectious disease.” That is in harmony with the accepted definition of a pestilence. But malaria, river blindness, Chagas’ disease, heart disease, cancer and AIDS (AIDS is a sexually transmitted disease) are not infectious diseases that pass from person to person in the same manner as do diseases associated with rapidly spreading pandemics, and therefore are not really pestilential diseases. (Tuberculosis is the only disease that has the potential to spread from person to person.)
It is not really accurate or honest to classify all the aforementioned diseases in the same category as a pestilence, as the Watchtower does. It is therefore apparent that the Spanish flu is the only thing in the past century that could even remotely have been part of the sign of Christ’s presence. That presents Jehovah’s Witnesses with the troubling problem of explaining why such a prominent aspect of the apocalypse took place so long ago that virtually no adults of the present generation have any personal recollection of it.
Given that the Avian Flu is emerging simultaneously with the growing threat of nuclear war and global financial collapse, the Watchtower’s silence on the significance of these matters is truly baffling. Although boasting of being Jehovah’s sole watchman, the Society has come to resemble the slumbering watchmen of Isaiah 56:10, of whom it is said: “His watchmen are blind. None of them have taken note. All of them are speechless dogs; they are not able to bark, panting, lying down, loving to slumber.”
