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Leavitt - Statement on Specimen Sharing and Vaccine Distribution

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  • Leavitt - Statement on Specimen Sharing and Vaccine Distribution

    For Release: Immediately
    Date: May 23, 2007

    Contact: HHS Press Office
    (202) 690-6343

    STATEMENT BY MIKE LEAVITT
    Secretary of Health and Human Services
    On the World Health Assembly Resolution on
    Pandemic Influenza Preparedness: Sharing of Influenza Viruses and
    Access to Vaccines and Other Benefits

    I am pleased the World Health Assembly has adopted a resolution on
    pandemic influenza preparedness that makes clear that Member States must
    continue to share influenza specimens and viruses with the World Health
    Organization's (WHO) Global Influenza Surveillance Network.

    I am also pleased that the resolution emphasizes the need for increased
    vaccine access. We have invested heavily in the development of new
    vaccine technologies that will benefit the international community. The
    United States strongly supports the WHO's efforts to meet the long-term
    global need for an influenza vaccine through the Global Pandemic
    Influenza Action Plan to Increase Vaccine Supply, and has provided $10
    million to this effort. In addition, the United States is committed to
    working with Member States and the WHO to explore other avenues to meet
    the near-term need for greater access to influenza vaccines, including
    pre-pandemic vaccines.

    The open and rapid sharing of influenza samples ensures that the global
    public health community maintains critical pandemic influenza
    preparedness and response activities, including the development and
    production of pandemic influenza vaccines. Withholding influenza
    viruses from the Global Influenza Surveillance Network greatly threatens
    global public health and is inconsistent with the spirit of the legal
    obligations we have all agreed to undertake through our adherence to the
    International Health Regulations.

    The United States works with the WHO and international partners
    throughout the world to enhance global surveillance and pandemic
    preparedness. This collaboration is based on four important principles:
    (1) transparency; (2) rapid reporting; (3) sharing of data; and (4)
    scientific cooperation. In that spirit, we continue to call on
    countries everywhere to share influenza samples openly and rapidly,
    without preconditions.

    Pandemics happen. It is a fact of biology, a fact of the unseen world of
    viruses, which are constantly mutating, adapting, and attacking. In a
    pandemic, time matters -- and lives are at stake. All nations will
    benefit and have a responsibility to fully participate in the WHO's
    efforts to prepare for an influenza pandemic.
    </pre>

  • #2
    Re: Leavitt - Statement on Specimen Sharing and Vaccine Distribution

    I'm comfortable with what he said, except that $10million is not
    much. WHO requested $10billion for the next 10 years, I think.
    I hope that was the WHO claim, he was referring to.

    Also, I don't like the 3rd-world-vaccine help to be connected
    to the sharing of samples.
    Both should be done independently.

    It's in the whole world's interest to help the front-countries
    in mitigating/preventing outbreaks.
    This help includes research which poorer countries can't afford
    and which makes use of those samples, amoung other things,
    and it includes direct help in form of antivirals and vaccine
    or antivirals/vaccine - factories.

    We've seen some improvements with vaccines recently and
    more progress is expected the next years.
    Unfortunately the timing is unlucky, since those current years
    seem to be more dangerous than usual.
    Although I see some relief this year with fewer cases, fewer outbreaks.
    I'm interested in expert panflu damage estimates
    my current links: http://bit.ly/hFI7H ILI-charts: http://bit.ly/CcRgT

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: Leavitt - Statement on Specimen Sharing and Vaccine Distribution

      I agree with gsgs. It is in the best interests of first world countries to share research and provide monetary support, antivirals, and vaccines (when they become available) to developing nations that are currently at the forefront of the battle with H5N1.
      http://novel-infectious-diseases.blogspot.com/

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: Leavitt - Statement on Specimen Sharing and Vaccine Distribution

        Bird Flu Virus Samples Must Be Shared, Officials Say (Update2)

        By Jason Gale

        May 23 (Bloomberg) -- Bird flu virus samples, used to help scientists formulate vaccines against the disease, should be shared by countries to protect against a pandemic, government leaders said in Geneva today.

        The decision-making body of the World Health Organization asked the agency to review how samples are distributed. The request was part of a four-page resolution adopted by the WHO's 193 member states after Indonesia, the nation with the most bird flu cases, withheld samples to demand access to affordable drugs.

        Scientists need the latest versions of the avian influenza virus, which mutates constantly, to produce up-to-date vaccines that can protect against a global outbreak. Today's resolution called on WHO Director-General Margaret Chan to establish an international vaccine stockpile ``for countries in need.''

        ``This resolution provides a framework on how to move forward,'' WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said in an interview.

        Hartl said a so-called interdisciplinary group will meet over the next three months to revise the terms of reference for WHO collaborating centers, laboratories and national influenza centers. The group, with representatives from 24 countries, will also review how virus data can be shared ``based on mutual trust'' and transparency.

        ``We are very happy that our resolution has been accepted,'' Indonesian Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari said in a telephone interview from Geneva. ``This shows developing countries have succeeded in changing an unfair system which has been put in place for 50 years.''

        U.S. Pleased

        Michael Leavitt, the U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services, said he was ``pleased'' by the resolution.

        `` Withholding influenza viruses from the Global Influenza Surveillance Network greatly threatens global public health and is inconsistent with the spirit of the legal obligations we have all agreed to undertake through our adherence to the International Health Regulations,'' he said in a statement.

        The spread of the H5N1 strain of avian flu to 59 countries during the past four years has brought the world closer to another pandemic than at any time since 1968, when the last of the previous century's three major outbreaks occurred, according to world health experts. H5N1 has infected 306 people in a dozen countries since late 2003, the WHO said on May 16. About 60 percent of cases were fatal.

        To contact the reporter on this story: Jason Gale in Singapore at j.gale@bloomberg.net

        Last Updated: May 23, 2007
        ?Addressing chronic disease is an issue of human rights ? that must be our call to arms"
        Richard Horton, Editor-in-Chief The Lancet

        ~~~~ Twitter:@GertvanderHoek ~~~ GertvanderHoek@gmail.com ~~~

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