"Air Travel Spreads Diseases Faster Than Ever Before"

Thursday, August 23, 2007

UN Report:Air Travel Spreads Diseases Faster Than Ever Before 
The Associated Press


GENEVA (AP)--With an estimated 2.1 billion airline passengers roaming the
planet last year alone, infectious diseases are spreading faster than ever
before, the U.N. health agency said Thursday, calling on governments to
follow its revised regulations for fighting dangerous health crises.

"Vulnerability is universal," World Health Organization Director-General Dr.
Margaret Chan said in an introduction to the annual World Health Report,
this year titled "A Safer Future."

"New diseases are emerging at the historically unprecedented rate of one per
year," she said.

A large part of WHO's attempt to protect global health has been through the
revision of the International Health Regulations, which came into effect in
June. The voluntary regulations govern how countries should report
potentially dangerous health emergencies to WHO.

While the regulations are meant to improve disease reporting worldwide, it
is uncertain how much influence they actually have. For example, earlier
this year, U.S. officials anxiously tracked the European whereabouts of a
U.S. lawyer believed to have a highly dangerous form of tuberculosis.

International officials eventually identified the roughly 127 people thought
to have been exposed to his illness during two transatlantic flights. But it
was only after the lawyer had left Europe that U.S. officials informed WHO
and other countries of the event -who were left powerless to act. The lawyer
later turned out to have a less serious form of the disease.

"International public health security is both a collective aspiration and a
mutual responsibility," Chan said.

While the governments of WHO's 193 member states would ideally be the first
source of information in any outbreak, that is often not the case. Nearly
half of all of WHO's outbreak alerts come from the media and are then
followed up with affected countries.

WHO's annual report also urges countries to share viruses to help develop
vaccines and to tighten domestic efforts to combat disease outbreaks.

But an ongoing battle with Indonesia, the nation hardest hit by the H5N1
bird flu, has yet to be resolved. Though Indonesia has said it would send
human bird flu virus samples to WHO, the country has yet to fully share with
the organization.

Jakarta has repeatedly demanded assurances that any pandemic vaccines
developed would be affordable for developing nations. Instead of sharing
viruses with WHO, Indonesia has signed agreements with vaccine makers,
promising to share samples in exchange for vaccine expertise.

China stopped sharing H5N1 specimens with WHO for almost a year before
finally sending samples in June, while Vietnam said it sent samples but has
encountered shipping road blocks.

In 1951, when WHO issued its first set of health regulations to prevent the
international spread of diseases, the situation was stable, the report said.
People traveled internationally by ship, slowing the spread of diseases
around the world. New diseases were rare.

But today, high volumes of people can quickly travel worldwide, meaning an
outbreak or epidemic in any part of the planet is only a few hours away from
becoming an imminent threat somewhere else, the report said. Over the last
five years, WHO confirmed more than 1,100 outbreaks worldwide, such as
cholera, polio and bird flu.

There are 39 new pathogens that were unknown a generation ago, including
HIV/ AIDS, Ebola hemorrhagic fever and SARS, or severe acute respiratory
syndrome.

"It would be extremely naive and complacent to assume that there will not be
another disease like AIDS, another Ebola, or another SARS, sooner or later,"
the report said.

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