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The President of the World Health Organization (WHO) has launched a call to arms to prevent the next major flu pandemic. While praising the path traveled by humanity, the head of public health warns that we are not sufficiently prepared.
"The threat of pandemic influenza is omnipresent" said the director general of the WHO, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. "The question is not whether we will have another pandemic, but when."
The warning was issued when WHO announced its new Global Influenza Strategy for 2019-2030, amidst about one billion annual cases of influenza, of which 3 to 5 million are considered serious, resulting in between 290,000 and 650,000 influenza-related deaths each year.
#Influenza remains one of the biggest public health problems and seasonal influenza weighs throughout the year.
Each year, an estimated 1 billion cases and up to 650,000 respiratory deaths linked to influenza in the world https://t.co/cPrf8xEqWHpic.twitter.com/mqlNkknoIj
– World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) March 11, 2019
We must be vigilant and ready – the cost of a major influenza epidemic will far exceed the cost of prevention.
The updated strategy will focus on strengthening disease surveillance and disease control operations country by country, in combination with vaccines, antivirals and more effective treatments, providing universal access in the whole world.
To achieve such an ambitious goal, Ghebreyesus stresses that international cooperation is essential to the success of the strategy, to avoid a repeat of the H1N1 influenza pandemic (swine flu) of 2009 and 2010.
During the swine flu pandemic, one in five people worldwide was infected in the first year alone, with a mortality rate of 0.02% (at least 18,500 people).
"The world is better prepared than ever for the next big epidemic, but we are not yet sufficiently prepared," Ghebreyesus warns.
The main threat is that another influenza virus, more deadly, is passing from animals to humans, mutant and potentially infecting hundreds of thousands, even millions of people.
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