Public Health: Disease, Epidemic & Pandemic Threat (merged thread)

[AdamG]

A global flu pandemic is a realistic threat that the world must prepare for, the World Health Organization said March 11.

The organization revealed its global flu strategy for 2019-30, which focuses on addressing both seasonal flu outbreaks and global pandemics.

The WHO's flu strategy outlines two main initiatives:

Ensure every country has a strong flu surveillance and response program
Develop tools to better prevent, detect or treat the flu that are accessible to all countries
"The threat of pandemic influenza is ever-present," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, said in a press release. "The question is not if we will have another pandemic, but when. We must be vigilant and prepared — the cost of a major influenza outbreak will far outweigh the price of prevention."

https://www.beckershospitalreview.co...en-not-if.html

8 Things to know about pandemic influenza
11 March 2019
The threat of pandemic influenza is ever-present. A pandemic can arise when a new influenza virus that hasn't affected humans before emerges, spreads and causes illness in humans.

Influenza viruses are unpredictable – we can never be certain of when or from where the next pandemic will arise. However, another influenza pandemic is inevitable. In this interconnected world, the question is not if we will have another pandemic, but when.

To protect people across the globe from this threat, the WHO has released a Global Influenza Strategy for 2019-2030. The new strategy is the most comprehensive and far reaching influenza strategy that WHO has developed. The strategy outlines a framework for WHO, countries and partners to work together to prepare for, prevent, and control the influenza.

https://www.who.int/news-room/featur...emic-influenza

[AdamG]

Socialism at work.

Infectious Diseases Spike amid Venezuela’s Political Turmoil
Scientists say the rise in illnesses is due to a combination of government suppression of research, a lack of disease data and climate change

Venezuela was once a leader in vector-borne disease prevention and control. In 1961 the World Health Organization certified the South American nation as the first in the world to eliminate malaria from the majority of its territory; in fact the WHO used the malaria-eradication program Venezuela developed in the 1950s as a public health model. That and other efforts reduced the prevalence of many vector-borne diseases to manageable levels through the 1990s. But in recent years a confluence of events—some political and economic, others environmental—has reversed these gains.

Here's the take-away.

The review co-authors warn the crisis could spark an epidemic in neighboring countries, as Venezuelans are emigrating by the millions. The authors say Venezuelan migrants suffered 45 and 86 percent of malaria cases in the bordering northern Brazilian municipalities of Pacaraima and Boa Vista, respectively. But it is difficult to ascertain how many migrants may have brought disease with them, and how many were infected after they reached host countries. Co-author Martin Llewellyn, an epidemiologist at the University of Glasgow, acknowledges this uncertainty, and adds his team plans to conduct molecular epidemiology studies to determine the origins of infection.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...tical-turmoil/

[AdamG]

Germs and warfare go together like peanut butter and jelly.

For the past three months, the crew of the dock landing ship Fort McHenry has been stuck at sea, avoiding port because of an outbreak of disease. But Navy officials bristle at the mention of a “quarantine.”

They point out that only 25 of more than 700 sailors and Marines have been diagnosed with viral parotitis, an infection that triggers symptoms similar to mumps, with fever, dehydration and chills reported in about 3.5 percent of the service members on board the Florida-based warship.

Instead, they say that “Fort McHenry’s operational schedule has been modified while the ship’s medical team monitors crew health,” according to a prepared statement by the 5th Fleet that was recirculated by the Navy’s Chief of Information Office at the Pentagon.

https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-...ime-and-germs/