Home
News
WHO official tells world to prepare for new diseases
In the wake of SARS and in the midst of the current bird flu crisis,
countries should be ready for new and possibly more deadly diseases in the
future, according to a senior official of the World Health Organisation
(WHO).
"As we have already seen with avian influenza, the threat from emerging
diseases did not end with SARS," said Dr Shigeru Omi, WHO Regional Director for
the Western Pacific.
Dr Omi said that one of the lessons from SARS
(severe acute respiratory syndrome), was that governments must provide
adequately resourced health systems to protect the public. "Many health systems
were undermanned and under-resourced when SARS struck," Dr Omi said. "The result
was great human suffering, enormous fear and staggering economic
losses."
Another lesson from SARS was that transparency always is the
best policy. "Because the outside world was not informed of what was going on in
the initial stages of the outbreak, the virus managed to reach a tourist hotel
in Hong Kong (China). From that moment on, international outbreak was
inevitable. If we had known more about what was happening in those early
weeks, things would probably have been different."
SARS also served
as a wake-up call on the need to change animal husbandry practices in Asia, Dr
Omi said. He said the SARS jump from animals to humans was clearly related to
the conditions in some wet markets where wild animals are jammed together and
slaughtered.
Dr Omi said that the avian influenza problem was being
aggravated by conditions in backyard farms, where different animals are raised
together, often in unhygienic conditions, and close to human
habitations.
Editor WorldPoultry
To comment, login here
Or register to be able to comment.