Engeler, Elaine. "Health experts say world still faces substantial threat of flu pandemic." Star Tribune 6th May 2008. May 7th 2008 http://article.wn.com/view/2008/05/06/Health_experts_say_world_still_faces_substantial_threat_of_f/?section=TopStories&template=cheetah-meta%2Frelated-stories.txt.


GENEVA - The world still faces a substantial threat of a flu pandemic and countries need to speed up preparations for a global outbreak, health experts said Tuesday.
"We can't delude ourselves. The threat of a pandemic influenza has not diminished," said Keiji Fukuda, coordinator for the World Health Organization's Global Influenza Program.
Fukuda spoke to a meeting of around 150 health experts from governments, WHO and other agencies to update WHO's pandemic influenza preparedness plan.
Scientists fear that the H5N1 strain of bird flu virus — which began ravaging Asian poultry stocks in late 2003 — could mutate into a form that spreads easily among humans, potentially sparking a pandemic that kills millions. So far, most human cases have been linked to contact with infected birds.
Fukuda said more than 150 countries had some kind of national preparedness plans but some of them were merely a piece of paper acknowledging the risk.
He said it was crucial that all levels of society were involved in the preparations and that everyone knows where to go for information.
"If somebody is sick in the family for example and it's difficult to get to hospital, they need to know what sort of advice might be available," Fukuda told The Associated Press.
WHO says 382 people have come down with bird flu since 2003, and that 241 of them have died. Indonesia, with 108 of the deaths, is seen by experts as a potential hotspot for a pandemic.
WHO is updating its 2005 preparedness plan to include progress in research on flu viruses, stronger international cooperation and experience with human cases of bird flu.
"Our understanding of the virus, the effects on people, the epidemiology how viruses move around the world, is much greater than it was a few years ago and this continues," Fukuda said.
Stockpiles of antivirals have been built since 2005, he said. WHO has stockpiled a total of 5 million antiviral treatment courses ready to be handed out if a pandemic breaks out.
He said the development of a possible pandemic vaccine have made significant strides.
"A few years ago it would not have been possible to talk about pandemic vaccines," he said. "All of a sudden we have new things to work with."
Experience and research over the last few years have led experts to believe that it is possible to stop a pandemic influenza right at the beginning of the outbreak, said Fukuda, adding that they recognized it will be difficult.
Fukuda said WHO will take into account the revised International Health Regulations in updating its pandemic preparedness plan, which is expected to be published by the end of the year.
Max Hardiman from WHO's secretariat for the health regulations said the agreement, which took effect in 2007, should help the world to know about a pandemic outbreak as soon as possible.
The health regulations oblige countries to report new disease threats with global public health significance, such as new flu subtypes. They also allow the WHO to act on credible information sources, rather than being reliant strictly on official government channels.
Hardiman said measures to contain a pandemic should avoid unnecessary travel restrictions.
Under the health regulations countries are putting in place measures to curb the spread of a pandemic, he said. These include assuring access to medical centers, control of airports and other points of entry and preparations to isolate sick people and quarantine contacts.
"One day we will face a pandemic but we don't know when," Fukuda said.

The World Health Organazation, known as WHO, fears that a strain of the bird flu will spread and cause a worldwide epidemic. At a recent news conference, WHO states its updated prepardness plan, although it was not that advanced. WHO also prepared 5 million vaccines just incase an outbreak occurs. Regulations have been set by WHO on roporting the risk of outbreak, so they can predict an epidemic before it happens and could get help to the area.

This article relates to the theme "Impact of interaction among and within major societies" because it talks about what a World Health Organization is doing to protect societies from an outbreak of the flu. WHO contains representives from many different countries that interact with each other in order to protect the world from heath problems.

The World Health Organization was founded in 1945 by the United Nations in order to form a healthier enviroment. This program is still sucessful today. The Bird Flu was dicovered toward the end of 2003, and health officials relized that this disease is very easy to spread and deadly. Since ten WHO has been preparing for the chance of an outbrek of this virus. A few outbreaks have already occured, including one in Indonesia, in which 108 people caught the disease. Since 2003, 382 people were recorded with the bird flu and of these people 241, or 63%, died.

This article was written by Eliane Engeler, a female reporter. She has done many reports on various different topics. The fact that mast of these articles were not medical or health related leads to the fact that she does not have a good scientific knoledge of this subject. She works for the Associated press, was of Amercian birth, and currently reports from Switzerland.

The author mentyions the view of Fukuda, the leader of WHO's influenza program, often. Most of the article is quotes or summarized speeches by Fukuda. Max Hardiman's, a secriateriat in WHO, point of view is mentioned briefly just to say that he agrees with Fukuda. Since there is close to no opinion from the author, you can conclude that she is pretty uneducated in the area of science. Fukuda strongly emphasises that WHO prepares for an outbreak because that is his job and he would need to make the flu sound like a major problem to make his employers think that they are paying him for something.

It would be nice to hear from a person from Indonesia who has surived the disease so that we could see how terible it really is and what he thought of the outbreaks in his native land. It would also be nice to hear from a family member of a person who died to see if they think WHO is doing enough to prevent the bird flu. A medical proffessional from the Americas would have been another great sorce of information because the Americas are generally foriegners to the outbreaks in Southeast Asia. This medical professional would be able to provide us with his opinion on the outbreak of the disease and it would come from an outsider that is educated on this topic.

I think that the flu is very deadly and could devistate the world if outbreaks occur. However,I believe that there are other forces out there tghat are more deadly than the flu and should also be watched carefully. Overall, I think they are over looking the situation, although it is nice to be prepared.