UN Chronicle | THE BIRD FLU: ARE WE READY FOR A PANDEMIC?

Meeting on Avian and Human Pandemic Influenza

A global meeting, held in Geneva from 7 to 9 November 2005, discussed the urgent need of countries already affected by avian influenza and those most at risk for financial and other resources, as well as to identify and respond immediately to a human pandemic. Co-sponsored by WHO, FAO, the World Organisation for Animal Health and the World Bank, the meeting was attended by more than 600 delegates, including country representatives, donor partners and regional organizations, from over 100 countries. Key components of a global action plan were identified to control avian influenza in animals and limit the threat of a human influenza pandemic.

Influenza Pandemics: ‘They are Natural Disasters’

“Pandemics of influenza are inevitable from time to time; like earthquakes or hurricanes, they are natural disasters”, said Dr. Stephen Morse, Director of the Center for Public Health Preparedness at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. These are not particularly comforting words when you consider the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, a natural disaster that occurred in the world’s wealthiest nation and, as acknowl-edged by United States President George Bush, “exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of Government”.

Dr. Morse told the UN Chronicle that the key to dealing with the threat of a pandemic is to be “systematically prepared”. Although most Governments have a general outline of what would be required in the event of a pandemic, he said that “we’re not there yet in terms of actually implementing them, and that’s going to require political will and resources. If you have a pandemic, where many, many people are infected, even if the mortality rate is low, the infrastructure and the support systems of most societies are going to be very seriously compromised”.

Health-care systems are in danger of being overwhelmed during a pandemic and Governments need to look at implementing procedures that address the medical needs of those infected, while at the same time “preventing them from passing it on to others”, according to Dr. Morse. Once a country has a pandemic preparedness plan in place, it’s important to test its feasibility. These simulations help people to learn to work together and “find the gaps in the plan so that they can improve their planning”, he said. However, he acknowledged that if a pandemic were “to happen in the real world, things will be much messier and much less certain”.

Dr. Morse believed that the SARS epidemic of 2003 gave the international community valuable experience working under the guidance of UN agencies like WHO and represented “a good example of some of the lessons we might have to learn on pandemic influenza”. He welcomed the United Nations involvement, stating that avian influenza “is a global problem and therefore requires global resources and global solutions”. He stressed that all countries needed to be prepared for the threat of avian flu, because if it turns pandemic it would be too late to prepare, as “the chicken would have already flown the coop”.

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