.gif)
The debate on 'false pandemic' alert got wider with a number of member States expressing apprehensions on the response of the World Health Organisation (WHO) to the recent pandemic of H1N1 and India urging the world agency to explain the media reports in this regard.
Even as the WHO agreed to write to all countries to clarify the position, the debate is likely to rage further with the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) is scheduled to discuss the topic when it meets in Strasbourg later this month.
Making an intervention in the ongoing Executive Board meeting of WHO in Geneva, Indian Health Secretary Sujatha Rao pointed out that such news reports were adversely impacting upon the public health measures being undertaken by countries. She also called for greater transparency about terms and conditions on which international vaccine manufacturers were supplying vaccines to countries. In response to this intervention by India, it was agreed that WHO would formally write to National Focal Points in all countries clarifying the factual position about the H1N1 pandemic to quell all doubts that had been created.
The WHO director general Margaret Chan announced at the meeting that the agency would launch a review of the global – including its own - response to the H1N1 swine influenza epidemic, as questions swirl around whether the UN agency exaggerated the importance of H1N1. The WHO will prepare an interim version of its review of the global H1N1 response in time for the next World Health Assembly in May.
Apart from India, many other members also raised the issue and called upon for a review. Japan even suggested it could look at measures in future to assess the seriousness of any flu outbreak, such as number of patients hospitalised. On the other hand, developed countries played down the criticism and urged the members not to be `complacent’ as result of such criticism but should be vigilant.
A group of members at the Council of Europe, led by its health committee chairman Wolfgang Wodarg raised the issue of false pandemic alerts through a motion, prompting the WHO to deny it forthwith. “In order to promote their patented drugs and vaccines against flu, pharmaceutical companies have influenced scientists and official agencies, responsible for public health standards, to alarm governments worldwide. They have made them squander tight healthcare resources for inefficient vaccine strategies and needlessly exposed millions of healthy people to the risk of unknown side-effects of insufficiently tested vaccines,’’ the motion said.
Copyright © saffron media, www.pharmabiz.com
FIND MORE NEWS-
