Word: globalization
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...severity, so the fact that the disease has been quite mild shouldn't factor into the alert level - which Fukuda confirmed in a call with reporters today. With the sudden surge in cases in the southern hemisphere, however - where the winter flu season is about to begin - the global situation seems to fit the criteria for phase 6. But the WHO is still holding back...
...pandemic-alert evaluation. And some independent experts have criticized the WHO for dragging its feet. They worry that, as new cases pile up and the WHO continues to hold the alert level at 5, the entire pandemic-rating system will lose all meaning - and the global body, which is probably the most respected of United Nations organizations, will lose valuable authority. "I'm afraid that they're about to go off the cliff of scientific credibility," says Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. (Read "5 Burning Questions About Swine...
...experts go, Osterholm has been a doomsayer, predicting that the world was far from ready for a new flu virus. But in the early days of the H1N1 outbreak, he was full of praise for the WHO's quick reaction. Now, however, he thinks that the global body, perhaps under pressure from governments that are worried about the economic impact of a full pandemic declaration, may be abandoning science-backed decision-making. "The public reaction and the media should not drive the science," he says...
...says that it still respects the science, but is mindful of the public reaction to the pandemic-alert phases - perhaps even more so after the global media went into spasms after the level rose to 5 on April 29. There are, of course, real dangers to a panicked reaction, beyond the assault of tabloid headlines. When people panic about a new disease, they start flooding the hospitals even when there's nothing wrong with them - a phenomenon carried out by the "worried well." They suck up limited resources from patients who are really sick from the virus - or are sick...
...pictures of the effects of global warming...