Word: h1n1
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...part of their plans, many governments lined up multibillion-dollar advance-purchase agreements with pharmaceutical companies to buy vaccines during a pandemic. When the WHO declared H1N1 as such, governments were locked into these contracts, if not legally then politically - amid news reports of a new and potentially lethal virus spreading around the globe, governments could not responsibly pass on the option for vaccine. In this context, governments may have felt the only prudent course was to err on the side of caution. (See pictures of thermal scanners hunting for swine...
...appears that even in developing nations, however, the need for vaccines is not overwhelming. Despite fears that H1N1 would hit developing nations hardest, the pandemic is unfolding in those countries "in a similar pattern" to that in the developed world, says Fukuda - which is to say with relatively few deaths. In fact, some developing countries, particularly in West Africa, are reporting lower rates of infection than in the developed world. "Based on the current H1N1 strain, there are higher health priorities in the developing world," says Sandra Mounier-Jack of the Communicable Diseases Policy Group at the London School...
Mounier-Jack's comment echoes the basic question that Wodarg and other critics of the WHO are aiming to pose at Tuesday's hearing: Given that other health problems were more deserving of the billions of dollars spent tackling H1N1, how do the WHO and governments explain their decisions...
...government, for its part, still wants to vaccinate as many people as possible against H1N1. Although it has indeed been a mild flu season so far, says Jeff Dimond, a spokesperson at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "our message right now is that people should get vaccinated. We are aware that a third wave of infections is possible, so we aren't making any decision yet on whether we will use our full capacity of 251 million doses...
Read "The H1N1 Pandemic: Is a Second Wave Possible...