• E-mail
• Print
• RSS

World meeting scheduled over flu concerns

Emergency Management Alert, November 2, 2004

Health officials from several nations will meet next week to discuss the outbreak of Asian bird flu and the flu vaccine shortage, the Washington Times reported.

Sixteen vaccine companies and health officials from the US and other large countries will meet in Geneva, Switzerland, on November 11, said Klaus Stohr, influenza chief of the United Nations' health agency, the World Health Organization (WHO).

The reason for the summit is due to scientists' growing fear that the bird flu mixed with human influenza could result in a global pandemic. 'We believe that we are closer to the next pandemic than we ever were,' Stohr said Sunday in an interview before a speech at an American Society for Microbiology meeting in Washington, D.C.

The world only has 300 million flu vaccine doses, and it would take at least six months to develop a new vaccine to fight a pandemic. The WHO wants to get 'all issues on the table,' monetary and scientific, that prevent getting more vaccine more quickly, he said.

'If we continue as we are now, there will be no vaccine available, let alone antivirals, when the next pandemic starts,' Stohr said. 'We have a window of opportunity now to prepare ourselves.'

• E-mail to a Colleague
• Print
• RSS
• Archive