Air travel and internet challenge new pandemic
Tuesday May 19th, 2009
The world is more vulnerable than ever to dangerous new strains of flu because of air travel, its most senior health official said yesterday.
All countries need to ensure that the poorest countries are protected against flu, Dr Margaret Chan, director general of the World Health Organisation, said.
Speaking to the World Health Assembly, Dr Chan warned: "Unlike the avian virus, the new H1N1 virus spreads easily from person to person, spreads rapidly within a country once it becomes established, and is spreading rapidly to new countries. We expect this pattern to continue.
"The world of today is more vulnerable to the adverse effects of an influenza pandemic than it was in 1968, when the last pandemic of the previous century began.
"The speed and volume of international travel have increased to an astonishing degree. As we are seeing right now with H1N1, any city with an international airport is at risk of an imported case."
She went on: "I strongly urge the international community to use this grace period wisely. I strongly urge you to look closely at anything and everything we can do, collectively, to protect developing countries from, once again, bearing the brunt of a global contagion."
Meanwhile experts have called for a rethink on how vaccines are developed against flu.
A major US conference will be told today how high-speed vaccines can be created over the internet.
Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, say they have conducted early clinical trials on new-style vaccines made against lethal strains such as the 1918 flu.
Dr Ted Ross is reporting his findings to the conference of the American Society for Microbiology.
He has been testing virus-like particles, a process already used to develop a vaccine against the human papillomavirus, which causes cervical cancer.
According to Dr Ross, the new-style vaccines can be genetically engineered using information posted on-line, once the genetic code of a new virus has been published.
He said: "The sequence for the recent H1N1 swine flu virus was online and available to scientists long before physical samples could be delivered.
"It would have been possible to produce VLPs in quantity in as little as 12 weeks while conventional vaccines require physical samples of the virus and production can take approximately nine months."
* A global plea to tackle another viral epidemic will not get a hearing, campaigners have learned.
The World Health Assembly, in Geneva, was due to have heard a call for worldwide action on viral hepatitis.
But the assembly has been cut short to concentrate on the battle against swine flu - and the discussion, requested by Brazil, postponed to another year.
It is claimed that as many as one in 12 people worldwide carry the hepatitis B and C viruses - and that a million people will die from the diseases in the next year.
The total number of people infected worldwide is said to be about 500 million.
Charles Gore, president of the World Hepatitis Alliance, said: "Viral hepatitis has never been properly addressed at a global level and the consequences have been disastrous.
"Despite this disappointing postponement, we look forward to working with both the WHO Executive Board and governments around the world to ensure that a resolution is passed in 2010 and that a comprehensive, coordinated approach is adopted before another million people die."
Tags: Flu & Viruses | Gastroenterology | North America | Traveller Health | World Health
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