Tweet
DNA "internacionalOPS considered strategic media work to influenza and other epidemics
EFE
, Mexico | 1 minute ago | Comment | Rate
positivonegativo + 0 - 0 | Imprimir.La Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) in Mexico said today that the media are "strategic actors" against influenza A and other health emergencies, during which they must provide "helpful messages" to the population.
"Today we can not talk to face an outbreak or a public health emergency without having clearly defined what we have to do from the standpoint of communication," said Costa Rican Xinia Bustamante, risk communications consultant for PAHO.
"Communication is a necessary element for the control of epidemics such as laboratory tests and epidemiology," he said during a briefing for journalists on AH1N1 influenza in Mexico City.
For the expert, the media should be the "first public" health authorities in these situations and become "strategic actors at all times but especially during public health emergencies.
He considered that both health authorities and informants share a matching goal: "to save lives and mitigate the damage" causing an epidemic or outbreak.
Bustamante recalled that between 2002 and 2005 were detected by health organizations in 760 disease outbreaks worldwide, of which 75 were investigated and 62 were "international significance".
In the case of health emergency Mexico experienced between late April and May, following the emergence of new H1N1 virus, expressed agreement with the Millennium Development Goals of the situation, but he criticized that put too much emphasis on statistical data and much less on preventive measures.
He said an advocate of "drastic measures" in extreme situations like that experienced better known then as a new virus.
The representative of PAHO noted that two previous inviting exercise the utmost caution, as they were, were the high lethality of avian influenza found in Asia in 1997 of between 50-60%, and the precedent of " Spanish flu of 1918, leaving one hundred million deaths worldwide.
The Costa Rican expert react quickly made it a priority on communication in such emergencies, send "helpful messages" and know that disease outbreaks "are often disturbing events that can cause anxiety in the audience."
He added that in all cases these situations, "has its political dimension, which can lead to strong measures of social or economic, that affect the lives of many people.
Meanwhile, the general director of the National Institute of Respiratory Diseases (INER), Mexico's Rogelio Perez Padilla said that there are still several myths regarding the AH1N1 that must be eliminated.
Among them, he cited the myth that vitamins or antibiotics are effective against the disease, or that is necessary to know the results of epidemiological evidence before beginning a medical treatment with antiviral drugs with an infected person