At its five-day 62nd session, which opened in Geneva on Monday, May 18, the World Health Assembly (WHA) would discuss a number of public health issues, including pandemic influenza preparedness, the sharing of the information on influenza viruses and access to vaccine and other benefits.
Although A/H1N1 influenza has been overwhelmingly concentrated in North America, noted WHO Director General Dr. Margaret Chan, the behavior of Pandemic is highly unpredictable, "as unpredictable as the viruses that cause them." She said that poor, developing countries have relatively poor health conditions and so they should be more vigilant.
The 62nd session of WHA conveyed the resolve of the international community to unite and jointly respond to health challenges confronting the member countries.
Influenza cannot be taken lightly, as this constitutes a serious lesson the humanity has drawn from history. Influenza pandemics, which occurred throughout recorded history, have been documented clearly and explicitly since the 16th century.
Three worldwide pandemic outbreaks of influenza occurred in the 20th century with a total loss of tens of millions of human lives, respectively in 1919, 1957, and 1968, and the later two were in the era of modern virology and most thoroughly characterized.
In case of the Spanish Flu or "La Grippe" the influenza of 1918-1919, it killed two to four times more people than in World War I (WWI), at somewhere between 20 and 40 million people. And the death toll in these three pandemics of the last century is equivalent to the total deaths caused by HIV virus since AIDS was known to humans.
International unity is the key to tackling A/H1N1 (swine) flu threat, as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said. With international unity for health, he aknowledged, everyone will have equal access to anti-influenza virus drugs and vaccines and, with international unity, the WHO and other important agencies will have the equal access to the control of resources to cope with influence flu.
Anyway, it is a matter for rejoicing that the international community currently has advantages of minimizing the spread of pandemics with the experience it has amassed over the years and improvements it has made with regard to the setup. Moreover, the WHO and other public public organizations or agencies, such as the Red Cross and Crescent societies, have formed a worldwide "network of networks" for pandemic warnings and responses to provide an organizational prop for humanity against diseases.
Meanwhile, the United Nations Millennium Declaration, adopted by 189 world leaders during the world summit held in New York on September 6-8, 2000, shows or embodies all the more the good intention and greater awareness of good public health practices.
At the same time, the cause of global public health, nevertheless, is still facing immense challenges. In some developing nations, public health systems are very weak, and people's lives and property are exposed to grave threats, which have been resultant from an acute shortage of heath-care treatment and medicines.
On the other hand, pharmaceutical companies in some developed countries are now seeking to enforce patent claims in poorest countries, and they are reluctant to lower the prices of key, essential medicines in developing nations. Consequently, only one-twentieth of the population in the developing nations has access to vaccines.
To counter with this thorny issue, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and WHO Director-General Margaret Chan met with more than 30 vaccine manufacturers on May 19 and conferred with them on vaccine production and on such detailed questions about how many vaccines could be turned out and supplied.
During the meeting, which was held at the WHO headquarters in Geneva, both Ban and Chan underscored the importance of assuring that any eventual vaccine for A/H1N1 influenza was made available in a spirit of equity and fairness, whereas representatives of vaccine-producing firms voiced their readiness to cooperate with WHO to assure that developing nations rapidly acquire and distribute vaccines.
To date, a global transmission of A/H1N1 influenza side by side with the ongoing global financial crisis have been posing a severe, inexorable menace for global economic and social development. In face of global public health threats, however, all nations should close ranks, help each other and increase their mutual understanding; they should step up the sharing of information and related technologies, so as to jointly guard against and prevent a new round of economic, social and human "calamity" that could possibly stem from the novel H1N1 influenza virus.
By People's Daily Online and its author is PD reporter Zhang Huizhong
|
Comment
Tell A Friend
Print Format
Save Article