[ world_security_ws_news ]
WHO Sets New Rules For Disease Outbreaks
John Stith
Staff Writer
2005-05-23
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced today new International Health Regulations to help contain disease outbreaks in the contemporary world. New diseases like SARS and bird flu as well as old diseases like polio emphasize the need for new measures and rules to help control these outbreaks.
"This is a major step forward for international health," said Dr LEE Jong-wook, WHO Director-General. "These new regulations recognize that diseases do not respect national boundaries. They are urgently needed to help limit the threats to public health."
The revision of the International Health Regulations has been under way for several years and has required an enormous amount of work by all 192 Member States of the World Health Organization. This work culminated in several lengthy sessions of an
Intergovernmental Working Group chaired by Ambassador Mary Whelan of Ireland.
The original International Health Regulations agreed in 1969 were designed to help monitor and control six serious infectious diseases - cholera, plague, yellow fever, smallpox, relapsing fever and typhus. The new rules will govern a broader range of public health emergencies of international concern, including emerging diseases.
"The new regulations bring disease control into the twenty-first century," said Dr Anarfi Asamoa-Baah, Assistant Director-General in charge of communicable diseases. "With this framework, we can now support the work of countries in controlling outbreaks more effectively. The regulations provide WHO with new, clearly defined roles and responsibilities as we help countries to respond to disease outbreaks."
Under the revised regulations, countries have much broader obligations to build national capacity for routine preventive measures as well as to detect and respond to public health emergencies of international concern. These routine measures include public health actions at ports, airports, land borders and for means of transport that use them to travel internationally.
The purpose of the International Health Regulations is to ensure the maximum protection of people against the international spread of diseases, while minimizing interference with world travel and trade.
They include a list of diseases such as smallpox, polio and SARS whose occurrence must be notified to WHO. The regulations also include a matrix for countries to decide whether other incidents constitute public health events of international concern. Consideration is made of whether an outbreak is serious, unusual or unexpected, whether there is a significant risk of international spread and whether there is a significant risk of international travel or trade restrictions.
"The existing regulations were written for a very different world from the one we live in today. Air travel was a luxury and the movement of goods and people around the world was relatively slow," said Dr Guenael Rodier, WHO Director of Communicable Disease Surveillance and Reponse. "Today, travel and trade have expanded far beyond what was envisaged under the original regulations. The new rules respond to a globalized, 24-hour world in which a disease outbreak in one country can rapidly move around the world."
Now that the regulations have been adopted by the World Health Assembly, countries will have to assess their capacities to identify and verify events, as well as to control them. The regulations identify specific capacity requirements that must be in place in each country within a fixed timeframe.
"Every country already has some of these capacities but almost no country has a perfect system," said Dr Max Hardiman of WHO, who has coordinated the process of revising the International Health Regulations. "The new regulations set clear standards and will help countries to identify where their disease surveillance and response must improve."
About the Author:
John is a staff writer for SecurityProNews covering cyber security.
More world_security_ws_news Articles
Insider Reports RSS Feed
|
|
iEntry 10th Anniversary
RSS
Archive
