Worldwide Commitment
What is being done at a global effort to stop the spread of the disease and avert a possible pandemic spread?
Rob Schintzius writes: Michael Leavitt, the US Secretary of Health and Human Services, has recently agreed to work with the governments of Cambodia and Laos to help buff up their defenses against the global spread of the avian flu. A team of top officials from the US, along with Director General of the World Health Organization, Lee Jong-Wook, are going to tour Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam in an effort to raise awareness about the threat of a global pandemic. Along with the march for awareness, the US also pledged to provide $1.85 million to help the Cambodian Ministry of Health.
While Leavitt was in Laos, he signed another agreement for the US to provide $3.4 million to improve disease surveillance. This money will be a part of a $25 million assistance plan that has already been enacted to improve bird flu prevention and control.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao donated $10 million (US dollars) at the International Pledging Concerence on Avian and Human Pandemic Influenza. This money will be given to fortify the global fight against the bird flu. Wen also suggested at this conference that communities should work together so that they can make full use of the money through joint prevention and control programs.
There have also been vast improvements in the development of vaccines. The US government has given more than $1 billion to give drug manufacturing companies to find a speedier way to produce vaccines. A whopping 300 million doses will be needed to immunize every US resident, and it is hoped that in 5 years all of these vaccines can be created.
Amanda, Leah & Liz write: CDC is taking part in a number of pandemic prevention and preparedness activities, some of them are the following:
1. Providing leadership to the National Pandemic Influenza Preparedness and Response Task Force, created in May 2005 by the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
2. Working with the Association of Public Health Laboratories on training workshops for state laboratories on the use of special laboratory (molecular) techniques to identify H5 viruses.
3. Working with the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists and others to help states with their pandemic planning efforts.
4. Working with the World Health Organization (WHO) to investigate influenza H5N1 among people (e.g., in Vietnam) and to provide help in laboratory diagnostics and training to local authorities.
5. Performing laboratory testing of H5N1 viruses.
6. Starting a $5.5 million initiative to improve influenza surveillance in Asia.
7. Developing and distributing reagent kits to detect the currently circulating influenza A H5N1 viruses.
8. CDC has developed and is distributing the first FDA approved test for the detection of the H5 viruses that first emerged in Asia in 2003.