Don't be complacent on bird flu-WHO
JEJU ISLAND, South Korea
The World Health Organization warned against complacency in the fight against bird flu, saying another human influenza pandemic is inevitable sooner or later.
"I am often asked if the effort invested in pandemic preparedness is a waste of resources," director general Margaret Chan told a regional meeting of the world organization. "Has public health cried wolf too often and too loudly?" she asked in a speech.
"Not at all. Pandemics are recurring events. We do not know whether the H5N1 virus will cause the next pandemic. But we do know this: the world will experience another influenza pandemic sooner or later."
WHO regional director Shigeru Omi noted that bird-flu deaths in the Western Pacific-which excludes Indonesia-had fallen from 19 two years ago to five in the past year. But he warned the virus was still "entrenched" in several countries. "Because the virus continues to evolve and mutate, we must maintain constant vigilance," he said.
Speed would be the key in handling any human pandemic triggered by bird flu, he said. "If a human pandemic associated with avian influenza were to break out in the region, rapid containment would be our highest priority. Such an effort would require the massive deployment of antiviral drugs, personal protection equipment and other supplies."
Takeshi Kasai, WHO regional adviser for communicable-disease surveillance and response, reiterated that the main fear is of H5N1 mutating into a strain easily transmissible between humans.
"Sadly, the H5 virus is mutating and changing very rapidly. Usually the bird-flu virus changes slowly but this one changes very, very fast," he said, adding it was unclear if this was an indication that it could mutate into a form easily transmissible between humans. "But these are the facts that make the WHO concerned. I'm sure if people are ready, its impact would be low, but if they are not, there would be big disasters."
In his speech, Omi noted progress in fighting other regional diseases. He said the Western Pacific had become the only WHO region to meet intermediate 2005 targets for tuberculosis control.
It was also making progress against HIV/AIDS, with prevalence among adults falling in some countries. In Cambodia the percentage had fallen from above two percent in 1998 to around 0.9 percent now.
Deaths from malaria continued to fall but drug-resistant strains hampered control efforts, Omi said. And dengue fever remained "major public-health problems" in many countries in the region.
M AFP
Time to get tough with tobacco giants
JEJU ISLAND, South Korea
A top World Health Organization official urged the world to get tough with tobacco companies, saying smoking deaths are an international scandal. "The deaths and misery caused by smoking continue to be one of the greatest scandals of our time," said Shigeru Omi, WHO regional director for the Western Pacific.
However, he said, the region has done "exceptionally well in fighting the tobacco scourge," noting that all 31 member states have ratified the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. This calls for signatories to fight smoking with higher taxation, a total advertising ban, and more education about health hazards.
"This sets out ways of battling tobacco use through taxes and other measures. Now it's time for all of us to move from commitment to action," Omi told a press conference at the start of a five-day WHO regional meeting in September. "We hope that all governments will use the convention to get tough on the tobacco companies."
Each day in the Western Pacific region alone, more than 3,000 people die prematurely from tobacco-related disease.
WHO director general Margaret Chan said economic damage from tobacco far outweighed benefits to countries. "It is correct to say that tobacco as an industry brings income to countries but one has to do a full economic analysis. You also need to look at the other side of the equation," she said. "When you do that full evaluation, I'm sure the damage due to tobacco would be much greater than economic incomes rising from tobacco."
Chan said the WHO's "very strong position" is to urge countries to implement the Framework Convention. At a meeting in July 2007, parties to the convention adopted strong guidelines on second-hand smoke and established a body to start work on a protocol to stop the illicit tobacco trade.
According to an estimate by the Framework Convention Alliance, grouping hundreds of tobacco-control organizations, smuggled cigarettes accounted for more than 10 percent of the world tobacco trade in 2006.
M AFP
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