KFF Monday, June 08, 2009

A meeting of the WHO's emergency committee held Friday to discuss the H1N1 (swine) flu ended without a pandemic declaration, but experts concluded that declarations would now be based upon the severity and transmission pattern of a virus, Reuters reports (Nebehay, Reuters, 6/5). "The Emergency Committee is composed of international experts and its task is to give advice to the WHO chief on influenza outbreak responses," according to Xinhua writes (Xinhua, 6/6).

June 4, 2009
By Donald G. McNeil Jr.

Six years of worrying about bird flu did much to prepare the United States for the current swine flu outbreak, federal officials and an independent monitoring group said Thursday, but they cautioned that there were still gaps in planning.

After the H5N1 avian flu emerged widely in Asia in 2003, killing about 60 percent of those infected by it, many countries took steps to head off the crisis that would emerge if that virus were to acquire the ability to jump easily from human to human. It has not, but a number of the measures were helpful.

By Stephanie Nebehay

Flu experts held emergency talks to assess introducing a severity scale into the World Health Organization's top level of pandemic alert and to discuss the spread of the H1N1 virus, officials said.

WHO Director-General Margaret Chan called the emergency committee meeting, but no decision is expected on crossing the threshold to the highest phase, a spokeswoman said.

"The agenda is not to decide on phase 6, I would like to stress this," WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib told a news briefing in Geneva.

© 2009 Reuters

For full article, visit:

Kumanan Wilson and John Brownstein on using the internet to track outbreaks
http://www.globalhealthmagazine.com/guest_blog/getting_an_edge_on_disease_outbreaks

The SARS outbreak of 2003 resulted in hundreds of deaths and billions of dollars of economic losses. While officially reported in February 2003, there was Internet evidence of the outbreak as early as November 2002. International awareness of the outbreak at that time could have led to measures that could have limited its global impact.

KFF
Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Vietnam recently published a report tracking its progress towards the U.N. Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets, which outlines the health ministry's work with other government and international agencies, Vietnam News reports.

Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Cao Viet Sinh said Vietnam is one of the first countries to integrate the MDGs into its own socio-economic development plan. At an event to mark the release of the report, Vietnam made seven proposals to expedite the achievement of the MDGs by 2015.

By Ed O'Keefe
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 4, 2009

FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate said this week that he will devote considerable efforts to boosting citizen participation in disaster preparedness, a shift from previous emergency management perceptions of the general public as a liability.

Part of those efforts, he said, should include a concerted effort by the federal government to better promote preparedness as a basic American responsibility.

In the weekly update and question and answer session (5 PM every Tuesday from Geneva, Switzerland) WHO spokes person Dr. Keijii Fukuda reports confirmed infection in 64 countries. They are seeing travel related spread, as well as community spread of the virus with-in some countries. Mexico, United States and Canada are showing a mixed pattern of waxing and waning spread of the swine flu virus so that the flu will appear to be ending in a community, than re-surge.

By Steven Reinberg, HealthDay Reporter
HealthDay / MSN on line

MONDAY, June 1 (HealthDay News) -- Swine flu cases have now been reported in all 50 states, with the total number of people infected probably surpassing 200,000, U.S. health officials said Monday.

"It's accurate to say that there are probably several hundred thousand people that have been impacted by this flu," said Tom Skinner, a spokesman for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "But that's in line with what we would see with seasonal influenza if we had the number of cases we are reporting right now."

Regardless of the current economic crisis, "developed countries must not overlook the particular vulnerability of the world’s poor," a New York Times editorial says, pointing to a recent WHO health statistics survey that found many developing countries are falling short of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals.

__ A good focus on social and economic determinants of health __

When first lady Michelle Obama travels to Ghana with the President in July she has the opportunity to shine a spotlight on the "disproportionate impact of AIDS on women and girls" worldwide, in turn helping to "strengthen the AIDS response – at home and abroad," Janet Fleischman, senior associate at the Global Health Policy Center of the Center for Strategic and International Studies writes in an allAfrica.com guest column.

News reports on swine flu / H1N1 are showing no slow down in the virus. Bloomberg.com reports flu cases in Australia are doubling about every two days, with 401 confirmed cases as of June 01. This has risen from 20 on May 25. Most cases are in the colder southeastern state of Victoria with 306 cases, up from 173 two days earlier.