WHO's International Meeting

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WHO Convenes International Meeting to Discuss

Influenza Pandemic Containment Strategy

Accra Mail (Accra) NEWS March 7, 2006

Yesterday, Monday, March 6 2006, the World Health

Organization (WHO) started a three-day technical

meeting of international public health experts at its

Geneva headquarters, to discuss a rapid response

strategy in the event of an influenza pandemic

emerging.

The meeting will continue the development of an

operational guide for WHO and other public health

authorities to use in an attempt to extinguish a

pandemic in its initial stages. Using the draft

protocol issued on 27 January 2006 as a departure

point, the meeting will define priorities for WHO and

its partners as planning for a pandemic containment

effort moves forward.

The meeting is focusing on three areas: operations

(the logistics for mounting such an effort),

surveillance and epidemiology, and public health

measures (quarantines, anti-viral medicines, social

distancing measures, etc.) From 6-8 March, more than

30 experts in a variety of disciplines including

epidemiology, virology, public health, and laboratory

issues, will discuss how WHO and the global public

health community might effectively contain the

transmission of a pandemic virus at its source.

A containment protocol will enable a coordinated

approach to the rapid detection, assessment, and

response to the emergence of a pandemic virus. Halting

a pandemic depends on several factors, such as the

early identification of the pandemic strain, the

ability of the global community to implement

containment procedures, and the ability to effectively

control the movement of people in and out of the

affected area, to prevent further geographical spread

of the virus.

Even if the pandemic cannot be stopped, public health

interventions might buy time to allow countries to

further strengthen their response systems, as well as

accelerating the production of pandemic vaccine.

While no efforts to extinguish influenza pandemics

have ever been attempted, the continued surveillance

of the avian influenza H5N1 strain allows the global

community a unique opportunity to monitor the

evolution of a possible pandemic strain. If there is

even a small chance that the enormous health, economic

and social damages caused by a pandemic might be

averted, then WHO has a responsibility to try.

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