COLLECTIVE DUTY
The WHO urges member states to share in the responsibility of tackling rising threats to international health
GENEVA
The World Health Organization urged countries to join forces to tackle the growing number of cross-border threats to public health, including avian influenza and HIV/AIDS.
"When the world is collectively at risk, defense becomes a shared responsibility of all nations," said WHO director general Margaret Chan in a statement to mark World Health Day on April 7.
New diseases such as SARS and bird flu have been emerging at a rate of at least one a year in recent decades, according to the United Nations health agency. Outbreaks can no longer be handled as a purely national problem, because they threaten lives and the economy worldwide, it added.
H5N1 bird flu is widely thought to have jumped the species barrier into humans with outbreaks in southern China, but the disease was only detected after it spread into Hong Kong in 1997.
SARS, which infected more than 8,000 people and killed more than 800, also caused an estimated US$60 billion in business losses in the third quarter of 2003 alone. HIV/AIDS was unknown until its discovery in a patient in the United States in 1981. The immune-deficiency disease claimed about 2.9 million lives last year and currently affects 39.5 million people worldwide, according to UN data.
The WHO is pinning its hopes for greater cooperation on revised international health regulations passed by its 193 member nations two years ago, which are due to enter into force on June 15. Under the old 1969 regulations, countries were only obliged to inform the WHO about cases of three infectious diseases: cholera, plague, and yellow fever. The new version broadens the scope to all illnesses that might threaten other countries.
"We need to ensure that all countries are equipped to tackle health threats with solid health systems," said WHO press officer Fadela Chaib. "For example, if countries affected by bird flu can't control it at home, then there's a collective risk. The more new clusters of bird flu there are, the greater the chance that the virus will mutate."
The WHO said that functioning health systems were key links of the chain for security, but most national services were "inadequate." It also highlighted a global shortage of four million health workers.
Rising threats
The WHO's Western Pacific office also warned that rising threats to health and security could place international public health in peril unless countries adopt a global health response to disease outbreaks and other health-related concerns.
"Health and international security are closely intertwined. A danger in one country can present a risk to communities on the other side of the world," said Dr. Shigeru Omi, regional director for the Western Pacific. "We must all work together to minimize the international impact of infectious diseases by building up health capacity to prevent, detect, report, and respond to these threats."
This year's theme for World Health Day is international health security, with the message that nations must "invest in health, build a safer future."
Emphasizing the importance of collective action, Omi called for faster and more transparent information sharing among countries and urged rich nations to do more to help poor nations address risks to international health security.
Of the six WHO regions, the Western Pacific has been the most affected by disease outbreaks and natural disasters, enduring one challenge after another in recent years from SARS and avian flu to volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, landslides, floods, and typhoons.
"Global health is at risk like never before," Omi said. "On average, a new infectious disease has emerged each year for the past 20 years, while old enemies, such as tuberculosis and other communicable diseases, are surging once more." The health situation is compounded by chronic lifestyle diseases, natural disasters, the threats of bioterrorism, and phenomena such as climate change. Underfunded health systems and the migration of skilled health workers from developing to more affluent countries add to the already overwhelming problem.
Said Omi: "As we learned with SARS and are now seeing with avian influenza, communicable diseases do not stop at national borders. SARS spread with explosive speed, starbursting from a room in a hotel in Hong Kong to affect more than 30 countries and areas within just a few months."
One of the lessons from SARS was that public-health systems in many countries were simply not equipped to face an attack from such a dangerous new disease, Omi said, noting that surveillance and awareness were poor, infection-control measures in hospitals had become lax, and spending on public health had not kept pace with needs.
Bird flu also originated in the Western Pacific Region. And apart from causing human disease and deaths, it has had a crippling impact on the lives of the rural poor who depended on poultry for their livelihood.
M with a report from AFP
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