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WHO Declares Phase 6 - Full Pandemic Due to Novel H1N1 Spread
Re: WHO Moving to Phase 6 Due to Novel H1N1 Spread
Thank you Ironorehopper for the explanations. That nevertheless there will be data selected which will leave. The journalists are crafty ones and they sometimes knowingly say the forgery to obtain truth when they know that information is retained. Fukuda and others in will have full the arms it is certain. Us also besides.
Re: WHO Moving to Phase 6 Due to Novel H1N1 Spread
I think that because this time the media will actually have some specific death stories to grab hold of
That used to happen in the US, but not any more. The US government agencies used to announce the names, along with details. But the media tracked down the victim's relatives, who sometimes said that the government was wrong in claiming that the victim had "underlying conditions".
So now it has gone to the opposite extreme where they often just announce that so many people died in a certain city or county, and they had underlying conditions.
The result is that there's nothing to interest the media, so they either bury the story or don't report it at all.
I posed this problem last year here at FT, pointing that the official individual health releases could be closed (job pending if make public releases), and the individual health professionals will have a deny of publications other than the officialy decided from the under-censor.
The recent developments with lowering infected numbers, new emergency procedures for official web site publishing, confirm such problem is already present.
But I don't think they will so fast publish the real numbers after settling up the phase 6.
At the contrary, than could enact all the various countries pandemic guidance laws based on WHO guideliness, which in fact support an country centralized and censored infection news publication.
If that would be the case, I suggest that FT will must rely more on individual tips about local based rumors or evidently present surge in flu illnessed.
Than, the FT policy of a needed provided cited web link for numbers/events could became tricky to achieve ...
FT's position since the beginning of the Novel H1N1 situation is that millions would be infected. We said this on the radio and also in print here. We think the CDC and WHO numbers are interesting but it is impossible to accurately count the victims in an illness in which possibly 1/3 do not exhibit a fever. We have assumed that this flu will do what most influenza illnesses do - infect large numbers of people. It was clear from the early days in Mexico that this illness was efficient at infecting human hosts and it also showed sustained transmission. Despite protestations to the contrary, we knew that once this illness made an appearance in a locality it would spread similar to the Mexico experience.
We will never know the correct number of those infected or the true count of deaths. We will report the "official" numbers but we know that these numbers are only good for a trend analysis, not for exactness.
Re: WHO Moving to Phase 6 Due to Novel H1N1 Spread
via email -
GENEVA, June 10 (Reuters) - The World Health Organisation has called an emergency meeting of experts on Thursday to discuss the spreading H1N1 flu outbreak, in a sign that the United Nations agency may be poised to declare a pandemic.
"The emergency committee has been called for tomorrow noon," WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl told Reuters. "They will be consulting on the state of the outbreak."
The United Nations agency said on Tuesday that it was on the verge of declaring the first influenza pandemic in more than 40 years, but wanted to ensure that countries are well prepared to prevent a panic over the disease, widely known as swine flu.
WHO Director-General Margaret Chan has consulted previously with the group of international experts before raising the alert level about the new strain, which emerged in April in Mexico and the United States.
Confirmed community spread in a second region beyond North America would trigger moving to phase 6 -- signifying a full-blown pandemic -- from the current phase 5 on the WHO's 6-level pandemic alert scale.
There have been 27,737 cases reported in 74 countries to date, including 141 deaths, according to the WHO's latest tally.
(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Jonathan Lynn)
Re: WHO Moving to Phase 6 Due to Novel H1N1 Spread
We will never know the correct number of those infected or the true count of deaths.
We should be able to get a correct infection count via blood tests. If they test a large and representative sample of the population for new H1N1 antibodies, it would be statistically valid.
We should be able to get a correct infection count via blood tests. If they test a large and representative sample of the population for new H1N1 antibodies, it would be statistically valid.
Sure. But I have no indication that the CDC or WHO are going to do that.
Re: WHO Moving to Phase 6 Due to Novel H1N1 Spread
Ehm, I have the impression that they all will not want to make long tests to anybody but the hospitalized, once the pandemic would be full blown,
and the worldwide hospital bed numbers are small, compared to the possible needs.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I doubt there will be so much insiders disposed to count the worldwide used tests numbers.
We should be able to get a correct infection count via blood tests. If they test a large and representative sample of the population for new H1N1 antibodies, it would be statistically valid.
Jonathan Lynn, Reuters, Geneva:
Dr Fukuda, I just wanted to check what you said at the very outset where you referred to 249 deaths and the figures of yesterday was only 139, that seems a very big jump, and I wanted to know if I had heard that correctly, and if so, what is the explanation for that. I had a second question as well but would you like to take that one first.
Dr Fukuda:
Jonathan, let me actually ask for a verification on that and let me come back to you. Can you give me your second question.
(...)
Dr Fukuda: First let me clarify the number that came up earlier. The number I gave you on the number of deaths was erroneous. The number of deaths is 140 so rather than the 249 ? if you can make that correction ? that is the number of reported deaths from this virus to WHO is 140.
In terms of examples of adverse reaction that we would like to either see not occur or have them be reduced. When we first announced about this virus and the situation, there were certain actions that were taken such as questioning the safety of pork, there was culling of pigs that went on, there were trade embargoes which were issued, there were concerns about travellers coming from certain areas, and there was concern over border closures or travel restrictions... a lot of those kinds of questions came up. (...)
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------
Isn't 249 a rather odd number to come up with (in error)?
Re: WHO Moving to Phase 6 Due to Novel H1N1 Spread
WHO experts to meet as pandemic alert call nears
10 Jun 2009 17:35:00 GMT
<!-- 10 Jun 2009 17:35:00 GMT ## for search indexer, do not remove -->Source: Reuters
<!-- AN5.0 article title end --><SCRIPT language=JavaScript src="/bin/js/article.js"></SCRIPT></SPAN><INPUT id=CurrentSize value=13 type=hidden name=CurrentSize> <!-- WHO experts to meet as pandemic alert call nears --><!-- Reuters -->* WHO emergency committee to discuss H1N1 flu outbreaks
* Agency chief making own assessment before talks
* Decision to declare full pandemic could follow
(Adds quotes, background and byline)
By Stephanie Nebehay
GENEVA, June 10 (Reuters) - The World Health Organisation has called an emergency meeting of experts on Thursday to discuss the spreading H1N1 flu outbreak, in a sign the U.N. agency may be poised to declare a pandemic.
WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, who consulted health officials in affected countries on Wednesday, was drawing up her own evaluation ahead of the meeting set to begin at midday (1000 GMT), a spokesman said.
"She is looking for some detailed epidemiological explanation for what is going on," WHO spokesman Dick Thompson told Reuters. "She is making her own assessment based on information gathered today and running it by the Emergency Committee tomorrow."
Thompson declined to say whether the WHO would declare a full-blown pandemic after the closed-door talks, saying he did not want to prejudge the experts' recommendations.
Chan had sought further information from some countries to clarify news reports that they were detecting sustained transmission of the new virus in the community, and not just imported cases, he said.
WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said the expert committee would consult "on the state of the outbreak". The strain, which emerged in April in Mexico and the United States, has spread widely in places including Australia, Britain, Chile and Japan.
The agency said on Tuesday it was on the verge of declaring the first influenza pandemic in more than 40 years, but wanted to ensure countries were well prepared to prevent a panic over the disease, widely known as swine flu.
Chan, a former health director in Hong Kong, has previously consulted the group of international experts before raising the alert level.
Confirmed community spread in a second region beyond North America would trigger moving to phase 6 -- signifying a full-blown pandemic -- from the current phase 5 on the WHO's 6-level pandemic alert scale.
GEOGRAPHIC SPREAD
There have been 27,737 cases reported in 74 countries to date, including 141 deaths, according to the WHO's latest tally.
Keiji Fukuda, acting WHO assistant director-general, told reporters late on Tuesday that a move to phase 6 would reflect the geographic spread of the new disease.
"It does not mean that the severity of the situation has increased or that people are getting seriously sick at higher numbers or higher rates than they are right now," he said.
"One of the critical issues is that we do not want people to 'over-panic' if they hear that we are in a pandemic situation," Fukuda told reporters at the time.
The WHO wants to avoid causing undue alarm over a virus that has been largely mild in most countries, while warning it could still mutate into a more virulent form.
Members such as Britain have called on the WHO to revise its scale to reflect severity in future.
The WHO and its 193 member states were working hard to prepare for a pandemic, for instance developing vaccines and building up supplies of anti-viral drugs, Fukuda said.
Drug makers are on track to have a vaccine against the new strain ready for the northern hemisphere autumn after receiving seed virus samples, company officials said. [ID:nLA644931]
Thomson Reuters delivers technology with purpose — empowering professionals to make faster decisions, gain sharper insights, and deliver greater impact.
<!-- news ## for search indexer, do not remove -->
Isn't 249 a rather odd number to come up with (in error)?
My guess is this is their # of fatalities which are probable but not yet confirmed. They must have #'s like this which they'd use in their deliberations but the official #'s are always the ones which have been confirmed.
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