Monday May 18, 2009
Health ministers focus on pandemic flu and vaccines
By Katie Reid and Laura MacInnis
GENEVA (Reuters) - Health ministers from around the world agreed to drop nearly everything but pandemic flu from their annual congress agenda on Monday, so they can go home sooner to monitor the H1N1 strain that is now affecting Japan.
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Japanese high school students wearing masks wait for the opening of an event in Tokyo May 17, 2009. (REUTERS/Toru Hanai) |
The new virus that killed 66 people in its epicentre Mexico has caused infections in at least 39 countries and caused the World Health Organisation to say a pandemic is imminent.
"As we meet today, influenza A/H1N1 is at our doors," Leslie Ramsammy, Guyana's health minister told the assembly, which will now end on Friday instead of next Wednesday.
The delegates including Mexico's health minister Jose Angel Cordoba will spend this week discussing how to best respond to the H1N1 flu, which has caused mild symptoms in most of the 8,480 people infected to date.
They will also seek an agreement on how samples of the virus should be handled and shared with pharmaceutical companies working to develop vaccines to fight the strain, which is a genetic mixture of swine, bird and human viruses.
Rich and poor countries remain at odds over issues such as whether the biological material can be patented. The meeting will also discuss poor countries' needs for antiviral drugs like Roche's Tamiflu and GlaxoSmithKline's Relenza and any vaccines developed to confront the strain.
WHO Director-General Margaret Chan increased the global pandemic alert last month by two steps to Phase 5 in response to the spread of H1N1 flu in North America, where it has infected the most people and caused the most severe effects.
JAPAN AFFECTED
Under the U.N. agency's rules, signs that the disease is spreading in a sustained way in a second region of the world would prompt a declaration that a full pandemic is underway.
According to the latest WHO tally, there have been 103 confirmed H1N1 infections in Spain and 82 in Britain, the two largest pockets outside of North America. Most have been deemed imported cases or infections spreading in schools, and not in the broad community.
The seven confirmed cases in Japan, the largest concentration so far in Asia aside from nine in New Zealand, also appear to be linked to schools, according to the WHO.
Phase 6 flu would put countries on even higher alert about the disease and give more impetus to pharmaceutical efforts to create drugs and vaccines to fight its spread.
On Tuesday, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will meet top pharmaceutical executives to discuss their ability to make vaccines to fight the H1N1 strain.
About 20 companies worldwide including Sanofi-Aventis, Novartis and Baxter International currently make flu vaccines. Making a pandemic jab could require them to cut production of vaccines for seasonal flu, which kills between 250,000 and 500,000 people a year.
Copyright © 2008 Reuters
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