DURHAM, N.C. - In addition to alerting the public about the latest cases of swine flu, the media should be educating the public about how pandemics are largely fueled by poverty and can be combated, says a Duke University professor whose 2008 book examines how the mainstream media tell the stories of communicable disease outbreaks.

"Quarantine and vaccine are very important means of responding to a pandemic. But nothing will go farther to contain the spread of disease than a healthy population with access to health care," says Duke English professor Priscilla Wald, author of the book "Contagious" (Duke University Press, 2008).

"The saturation of a 24/7 news media creates the effect of an impending apocalypse. It reinforces a sense of helplessness and dependence on medical experts. The threat of a pandemic should not inspire paralysis. It should be a call to action. It should be a reminder that access to health care should not be a luxury, but a basic human right and a priority -- at home and abroad."

Wald says that increasing access to basic health care here and abroad is less expensive than the effects of a pandemic. "It is less expensive, furthermore, than the chronic diseases that affect populations worldwide. In human as well as economic terms, we cannot afford not to address it.

"In the midst of a threat of pandemic, the media does not remind us of the national health insurance crisis or of the lack of access to health care that is truly a global disaster. Mid-crisis, the problem of global poverty seems too large to address or even comprehend. We have more immediate concerns. Yet, the threat of a pandemic is precisely the moment for such reminders."