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When the Swine Flu hit last spring and the craze surrounding the virus really reached its peak there was a lot of talk about the idea and effect of pandemics in today's world. Of course pandemics have had a long history from small pox to the 1918 flu pandemic to HIV but we're living in a much more globalized world these days, making the most recent flu pandemic something the world needs to address instead of just individual countries.

There's a good article in The American about how rich nations need to start helping the poorer nations in their efforts instead of just stockpiling drugs within their own borders.  For example:

It is the WHO’s mandate to operate on international crises such as swine flu and it is highly competent to do so. But the richer nations, which can clearly muster the wherewithal to manage an epidemic within their own borders, seem reluctant to fund such operations on behalf of the poorer ones. This is shortsighted because the infected may well travel to or through richer nations.

We may have given Joe Biden a hard time when he made the statement that he wouldn't travel when swine flu was just getting underway but his logic was pretty sound (although somewhat impractical when it came to subways). Plus with the current financial crisis, poorer nations are surely going to have a harder time dealing with controlling swine flu, meaning the likelihood of it spreading is even higher.

Luckily there are people out there who are thinking about these things and even better they've given TED talks. Below are talks from Laurie Garret (she focuses on the 1918 flu) and Larry Brilliant (he starts talking about global issues at around minute 15).  There is lots to think about and I'll just say that Larry's last name is very appropriate as we really need to start to think like him when it comes to how deal with pandemics seeing as the world we live in continues to become more and more global by the minute.

*photo by ? Guerry (Creative Commons)