Are we ready for an Asia-Pacific influenza outbreak? | Devpolicy Blog from the Development Policy Centre

Are we ready for an Asia-Pacific influenza outbreak? | Devpolicy Blog from the Development Policy Centre: "The West African Ebola outbreak largely took the world by surprise. As a result, the global response to the epidemic – which has now killed 10,000 people – was slow. Despite the pleas of Doctors Without Borders for action in April 2014, it took until early August for the World Health Organization to declare the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern and then another three months before the WHO intervention was on the ground.

Australia’s response was even slower. An initial contribution came from Australia in mid-August, which was followed by months of discussion before the early November announcement that Australia would fund the running of a treatment centre in Sierra Leone – a centre that began seeing patients only in mid-December.

The glacial pace with which Australia (and much of the global community) acted is perhaps not surprising given the massive distance from West Africa to our shores.

But if there is a disease outbreak in our region, will we be able to respond faster and stop an outbreak in its tracks?

Such an outbreak is likely. Over the last 12 years, there have been three major outbreaks of mutated influenza strains or respiratory disease that emerged from our region: SARS in 2003, H5N1 in 2004–05, and the current H7N9 emerging from China. Most experts believe that another mutation – perhaps of greater virulence – is almost inevitable over the coming years as humans and animals interact more often in the shadow of urbanisation and resource constraints."



'via Blog this'