You probably saw innumerable stories as to how the World Health Organization was warning first that this might be an epidemic, and then, that it was indeed a pandemic.

But most all of those deaths were overseas. And we’ve all read dire headlines like this before: “Ebola Hot Zone Breakout… Vietnamese Bird Flu Flies Around World… SARS in Singapore… Invulnerable strains of Staphylococcus on Gym Mats… Incurable TB on Airplanes…”

In the end, nothing ever seems to come from it all, except a lot of expensive grants, decades-long studies, and indecipherable papers claiming to statistically prove that next time around we are screwed.

The “Next Time” Is Now

It’s so easy to get numb to it. Unfortunately, I have to tell you that the “next time” really is here. And while I can’t tell you if this is genuinely a plague, I can assure you that we are looking at something of considerably greater impact than a mere bad cold.

Right now, it’s summer in England. The average daytime high is 80°. Most summers, pallid Londoners worry more about sunburn than influenza, which usually sequesters itself to the cold soggy days of winter.

But not this summer. This time, it’s different….

Spreading Like a Plague

In this year of the Swine Flu Pandemic, the rate of illness in London has quadrupled. Proven H1N1 cases have hit 1,794. But those are simply the incidents that have been forensically established.

The Royal College of General Practitioners has just reported that the incidence of “flu-like symptoms” (the euphemism for “it’s swine flu, but we can’t prove it because we have run out of test kits) has now risen to 80 of out of every 1,000 citizens in the city.

To give you a sense of scale, of just how fast this disease is spreading, last week, the figure was 20 out of every 1,000. Heck, last winter during the peak of the regular flu season it was only 60 cases out of 1,000.

When the Bankers Get Worried About the Flu…

H1N1 is spreading like, well, like a forest fire, really. And this is still just the beginning. The World Bank now reports (that’s right: the World Bank is getting involved now – an important clue we will come back to) that it expects transmission to accelerate over the next few weeks as the flu season commences in South America. And as the Bank calculates global impact, it is now factoring in a doubling of influenza mortality rates.

In its Pandemic assessment, the WHO reported that H1N1 has penetrated over 100 countries. But what you probably really want to know is what’s going on right here at home (for those of you in the States).

Here in the U.S., official H1N1 cases have surpassed the 1 million mark, with 127 official deaths. These are once again forensically proven cases – the actual figure may be substantially higher. The median age of those fatalities is 37.

And once again, this is all taking place during influenza’s weakest moment, when ambient temperatures and humidity make it difficult for airborne droplets of the virus to persist. Come winter’s dry, cold air, the rate of transmission is expected to increase tenfold.

How You Can Prepare…

This is not some tale out of history or the plot from some overheated medical novel. These facts are not conjecture or supposition.

This is happening, right here, right now. And there is little or nothing we can do to stop it.

On a personal level, you can tend any nagging health issues now, so as to be in good health prior to infection. Seventy-five percent of recorded fatalities have occurred when the victim has some underlying condition like obesity, pregnancy, asthma, diabetes or immune system problems.

You can do your best to avoid contact with obviously sick people. And to be blunt, you can stay home if and when you get sick, so the rest of us stand a better chance of getting through all this.

… And How You Can Profit.

On an investing level, I draw you back to the World Bank’s concerns. The Bank has just approved “fast-track” status of $500 million to help countries finance emergency operations to prevent and control outbreaks. This is on top of an existing $500 million credit line set up in January 2006 to minimize the threat posed to people by the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus H5N1.

And here in the States, the CDC is planning a massive immunization campaign that could include as many as 600 million doses of the H1N1 vaccine. There are five manufacturers of flu vaccine currently serving the U.S. market. Of the bunch, only GlaxoSmithKline (GSK:NYSE) also produces the post-infection anti-viral treatment Relenza.

GSK shares have already risen some 28% since last March. Come this winter, I anticipate that GSK will rise from its current price of $34.88 to just below $50. Select call options could be expected to rise as much as 236% over the same period.

And, as I have mentioned more than once over the past few months, that will pay for a lot of chicken soup and Tylenol.

Source: The Hot Zone Is Here