http://bird-flu-symptom.info/protection/little-progress-and-less-attention/
From Bird Flu News
Little Progress and Less Attention
Thursday September 21st 2006, 8:12 am
Filed under: Protection
Christine Soares, who covers biomedical matters for SciAm, dropped me the following note about a briefing on the state of preparations for an influenza pandemic, possibly springing from the worrisome H5N1 avian flu. It sounds like all that?s changed over the past year is that the fickle attentions of the press and public have shifted to other matters.
Today?s press conference sponsored by the U.S. State Department was held to mark the anniversary of last year?s announcement by President Bush, during this same opening week of the UN General Assembly in New York, of an ?International Partnership on Avian and Pandemic Influenza.? The partnership?s members include the United Nations and its key relevant branches, the WHO and the Food and Agriculture Organization, as well as the U.S., the European Union, Japan, Canada, Australia, and some of the countries where H5N1 avian flu is already established.
Today?s session got a late start because of the traffic tangle around the UN, and lasted only 30 minutes. As would be expected, there was a lot of very general description of cooperation by the partners over the past year on ?capacity building,? ?information sharing,? and more meetings of the partners planned for later this year and June 2007. Very few hard numbers or details were provided about how the past year, or the funds contributed to this particular effort by these partners so far, had been spent (except by Japan, which provided a handy printed list of its own actions and contributions). So it was hard to gauge how surveillance or vaccine manufacturing capacity or much else has been affected in that time by the formation of this partnership.
One thing that was dramatically different, however, was attendance at the press conference. Last year, the same room was packed with reporters ? a few science specialists who had been following the pandemic planning story, but most from the general media, some of whom seemed to be learning for the first time that birds can catch and transmit the flu and that it?s a potentially dangerous thing. The late WHO director, Lee Jong Wook, who passed away suddenly last spring, made a strong speech at that press conference conveying the urgency of pandemic preparations and the importance of the international partnership throwing its political weight and financial support behind the effort. He was mobbed afterwards by reporters wanting more.
Sadly, this year, the 10 very prominent representatives of the partnership present to speak and respond to questions, as well as three state department officials available from Washington on a satellite link, actually outnumbered the press in the room. It was a stark reminder of how short the attention spans of the public, and its proxy the press, can be. In a twist from the usual state of affairs, it seems like the representatives of world governments and other relevant organizations (e.g. UNICEF) are still taking the pandemic threat (not to mention the threat posed by highly pathogenic avian flu to world agriculture and the food supply) very seriously, after getting a bit of a late start. But the public had a brief scare last year, then forgot about it.
Fortunately, David Nabarro, the United Nations? chief coordinator for avian and human influenza, made the point that preparing for a pandemic means preparing for global outbreaks of diseases of any kind ? whether it?s a new flu strain, or a new SARS or Ebola-like pathogen, so it?s still money and effort well-spent. With hope, the few reporters in the room today will pass along that message to their audiences.
From Bird Flu News
Little Progress and Less Attention
Thursday September 21st 2006, 8:12 am
Filed under: Protection
Christine Soares, who covers biomedical matters for SciAm, dropped me the following note about a briefing on the state of preparations for an influenza pandemic, possibly springing from the worrisome H5N1 avian flu. It sounds like all that?s changed over the past year is that the fickle attentions of the press and public have shifted to other matters.
Today?s press conference sponsored by the U.S. State Department was held to mark the anniversary of last year?s announcement by President Bush, during this same opening week of the UN General Assembly in New York, of an ?International Partnership on Avian and Pandemic Influenza.? The partnership?s members include the United Nations and its key relevant branches, the WHO and the Food and Agriculture Organization, as well as the U.S., the European Union, Japan, Canada, Australia, and some of the countries where H5N1 avian flu is already established.
Today?s session got a late start because of the traffic tangle around the UN, and lasted only 30 minutes. As would be expected, there was a lot of very general description of cooperation by the partners over the past year on ?capacity building,? ?information sharing,? and more meetings of the partners planned for later this year and June 2007. Very few hard numbers or details were provided about how the past year, or the funds contributed to this particular effort by these partners so far, had been spent (except by Japan, which provided a handy printed list of its own actions and contributions). So it was hard to gauge how surveillance or vaccine manufacturing capacity or much else has been affected in that time by the formation of this partnership.
One thing that was dramatically different, however, was attendance at the press conference. Last year, the same room was packed with reporters ? a few science specialists who had been following the pandemic planning story, but most from the general media, some of whom seemed to be learning for the first time that birds can catch and transmit the flu and that it?s a potentially dangerous thing. The late WHO director, Lee Jong Wook, who passed away suddenly last spring, made a strong speech at that press conference conveying the urgency of pandemic preparations and the importance of the international partnership throwing its political weight and financial support behind the effort. He was mobbed afterwards by reporters wanting more.
Sadly, this year, the 10 very prominent representatives of the partnership present to speak and respond to questions, as well as three state department officials available from Washington on a satellite link, actually outnumbered the press in the room. It was a stark reminder of how short the attention spans of the public, and its proxy the press, can be. In a twist from the usual state of affairs, it seems like the representatives of world governments and other relevant organizations (e.g. UNICEF) are still taking the pandemic threat (not to mention the threat posed by highly pathogenic avian flu to world agriculture and the food supply) very seriously, after getting a bit of a late start. But the public had a brief scare last year, then forgot about it.
Fortunately, David Nabarro, the United Nations? chief coordinator for avian and human influenza, made the point that preparing for a pandemic means preparing for global outbreaks of diseases of any kind ? whether it?s a new flu strain, or a new SARS or Ebola-like pathogen, so it?s still money and effort well-spent. With hope, the few reporters in the room today will pass along that message to their audiences.
