Giuseppe
Emeritus
[Source: Nature, full text: (LINK). Extract, edited.]
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Under surveillance
<DL><DT>Journal name: Nature - Volume: 483, Pages: 509?510 - Date published: (29 March 2012) - DOI: doi:10.1038/483509b - Published online 28 March 2012 </DT></DL>
<DL><DT><DT>Global systems for monitoring threats from flu need a radical overhaul.</DT><DT> </DT></DL>Imagine a global weather and climate forecasting system that collects data regularly in just a handful of countries, and takes measurements elsewhere only during extreme weather events. That is what today's global flu-surveillance system mostly looks like. The shortcomings of flu surveillance have long been recognized (see Nature 440, 6?7; 2006), but they are attracting renewed attention following the creation in labs of strains of the H5N1 avian influenza virus that can spread between mammals. The main cited public-health benefit of the research is that it will allow for monitoring for such mutations in the wild, and give a remote chance of containing an emerging pandemic.
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-<DL><DT>Journal name: Nature - Volume: 483, Pages: 509?510 - Date published: (29 March 2012) - DOI: doi:10.1038/483509b - Published online 28 March 2012 </DT></DL>
<DL><DT><DT>Global systems for monitoring threats from flu need a radical overhaul.</DT><DT> </DT></DL>Imagine a global weather and climate forecasting system that collects data regularly in just a handful of countries, and takes measurements elsewhere only during extreme weather events. That is what today's global flu-surveillance system mostly looks like. The shortcomings of flu surveillance have long been recognized (see Nature 440, 6?7; 2006), but they are attracting renewed attention following the creation in labs of strains of the H5N1 avian influenza virus that can spread between mammals. The main cited public-health benefit of the research is that it will allow for monitoring for such mutations in the wild, and give a remote chance of containing an emerging pandemic.
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