scholarly journals How reminders of the 1918–19 pandemic helped Australia and New Zealand respond to COVID-19

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 421-433
Author(s):  
Geoffrey W. Rice
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
North America ◽  
Alternative Explanation ◽  
Influenza Pandemic ◽  
World Health ◽  
Influenza Outbreak ◽  
Spanish Influenza ◽  
The World ◽  
H7n9 Influenza ◽  
Health Organization

AbstractThis article will argue that the memory of the great ‘Spanish’ influenza pandemic of 1918–19 played a significant role in the preparedness and response of Australia and New Zealand to the COVID-19 pandemic, and may help to explain their success compared with Europe and North America. An obvious alternative explanation for the success of Asian states such as China, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan would be their experience of the SARS outbreak in 2002 and the H7N9 influenza outbreak of 2013. However, this explanation does not apply to Australia or New Zealand. All of these states had pandemic plans, initially developed with encouragement from the World Health Organization after the SARS outbreak, but only Australia and New Zealand appear to have directly incorporated ‘lessons’ from 1918–19 into their pandemic plans.

scholarly journals An Uncertain Risk: The World Health Organization's Account of H1N1

2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 511-529 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sudeepa Abeysinghe
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Influenza Pandemic ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
H1n1 Influenza ◽  
World Health ◽  
Scientific Uncertainty ◽  
Global Public Health ◽  
The World ◽  
Public Risk ◽  
Health Organization

ArgumentScientific uncertainty is fundamental to the management of contemporary global risks. In 2009, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the start of the H1N1 Influenza Pandemic. This declaration signified the risk posed by the spread of the H1N1 virus, and in turn precipitated a range of actions by global public health actors. This article analyzes the WHO's public representation of risk and examines the centrality of scientific uncertainty in the case of H1N1. It argues that the WHO's risk narrative reflected the context of scientific uncertainty in which it was working. The WHO argued that it was attempting to remain faithful to the scientific evidence, and the uncertain nature of the threat. However, as a result, the WHO's public risk narrative was neither consistent nor socially robust, leading to the eventual contestation of the WHO's position by other global public health actors, most notably the Council of Europe. This illustrates both the significance of scientific uncertainty in the investigation of risk, and the difficulty for risk managing institutions in effectively acting in the face of this uncertainty.

scholarly journals Scientific Certainty in a Time of Uncertainty: Predicting Vulnerability of Canada's First Nations to Pandemic H1N1/09

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Spence ◽  
Jerry P. White
Keyword(s):  
World Health Organization ◽  
First Nations ◽  
Influenza Pandemic ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Indigenous Populations ◽  
World Health ◽  
Director General ◽  
Pandemic H1n1 ◽  
The World ◽  
Health Organization

On June 11, 2009, the Director General of the World Health Organization, Dr. Margaret Chan, announced that the scientific evidence indicated that the criteria for an influenza pandemic had been met: pandemic H1N1/09 virus, the first in nearly 40 years, was officially upon us. The World Health Organization has estimated that as many as 2 billion or between 15 and 45 percent of the population globally will be infected by the H1N1/09 virus. Scientists and governments have been careful to walk a line between causing mass public fear and ensuring people take the risks seriously. The latest information indicates that the majority of individuals infected with the H1N1/09 virus thus far have suffered mild illness, although very severe and fatal illness have been observed in a small number of cases, even in young and healthy people (World Health Organization 2009c). There is no evidence to date that the virus has mutated to a more virulent or lethal form; however, as we enter the second wave of the pandemic, a significant number of people in countries across the world are susceptible to infection. Most importantly, certain subgroups have been categorized as high risk given the clinical evidence to date. One of these subgroups is Indigenous populations (World Health Organization 2009c).

scholarly journals Enteral fluid therapy in neonatal calves and features of commercially available electrolyte solutions in Brazil

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriela de Castro Bregadioli ◽  
Priscilla Fajardo Valente Pereira ◽  
Karina Keller Marques da Costa Flaiban ◽  
José Dantas Ribeiro Filho ◽  
Júlio Augusto Naylor Lisbôa
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Veterinary Medicine ◽  
North America ◽  
Fluid Therapy ◽  
Electrolyte Solutions ◽  
World Health ◽  
Acid Base ◽  
The World ◽  
Neonatal Calves ◽  
Health Organization

ABSTRACT: According to the World Health Organization, the development of orally replacement fluids and electrolytes was one of the most significant advances of the twentieth century, markedly reducing mortality from diarrheal children. In veterinary medicine, oral electrolyte solutions (OES) are routinely used to treat diarrheic neonatal calves in order to correct water, electrolyte and acid base imbalances. In North America, the use of OES is routine and there are at least 20 commercial alternatives. Use of OES has increased in recent years in Brazil, but just five commercial products are currently available. The OES should contain, in suitable concentrations, electrolytes, glucose and an alkalizing agent to ensure its therapeutic efficacy. This review aimed to address the therapeutic importance of OES for neonatal calves and to evaluate the compositions and characteristics of those commercially available in Brazil.

scholarly journals A healthy, innovative, sustainable, transparent, and competitive methodology to identify twenty benchmark countries that saved people lives against Covid-19 during 180 days

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (10) ◽  
pp. 541-577
Author(s):  
Jonas Gomes da Silva
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
Holistic Approach ◽  
World Health ◽  
Health Innovation ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative ◽  
The World ◽  
Health Organization ◽  
Fast Transmission

Since the “last day” of 2019, a new virus emerged in Asia, which in Feb./2020 was called by the World Health Organization (WHO, 2020) as Coronavirus disease (Covid-19). Due to its fast transmission, after eight months since the first global official case, at 23:59 (GMT) on August 31, 2020, the world has accounted for about 25,620,737 new confirmed cases with 854,222 deaths and 17,921,063 recovered cases (WORLDOMETERS, 2020). The pandemic is the newest challenge for all nations, most of them eager to learn from countries that are successful against the virus. However, until now, no methodology was developed to identify them by taking into account a holistic approach with international rankings concerned to health, innovation, sustainability, image, and competitiveness, as well as the estimated real number of fatal cases by one million population during the first 180 days of facing the pandemic. Thus, the main objective is to develop a holistic methodology to identify twenty benchmark countries that are saving people's lives against Covid-19. The research is applied, as its results and recommendations are useful for academy, government policymakers and authorities. It is descriptive, with a qualitative and quantitative approach, based on bibliographic and documentary research, involving the study of official sites, articles, reports, manuals, and other technical documents related to 13 international rankings. As a result, the fifteen phases of the methodology, far from perfect, shows that among 108 well-evaluated countries, the top six benchmark countries are from Asia (1) Vietnam; 2) Taiwan; 3) Thailand; 4) China; 5) Malaysia; 6) Singapore), which suffered from fatal cases from first SARS-CoV in 2002/2003, followed by 7) South Korea; 8) New Zealand; 9) Australia; 10) Japan; 11) Hong Kong; 12) Cyprus; 13) Greece; 14) Latvia; 15) Iceland; 16) the United Arab Emirates; 17) Czech; 18) Lithuania; 19) Norway, and 20) Estonia.

scholarly journals High infectious disease burden as a basis for the observed high frequency of asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections in sub-Saharan Africa

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 2
Author(s):  
Kwadwo Asamoah Kusi ◽  
Augustina Frimpong ◽  
Frederica Dedo Partey ◽  
Helena Lamptey ◽  
Linda Eva Amoah ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
World Health ◽  
Susceptible Population ◽  
Mortality And Morbidity ◽  
Quality Healthcare ◽  
The World ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Health Organization

Following the coronavirus outbreaks described as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003 and the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) in 2012, the world has again been challenged by yet another corona virus, named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). SARS-CoV-2 infections were first detected in a Chinese Province in December 2019 and then declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization in March 2020. An infection caused by SARS-CoV-2 may result in asymptomatic, uncomplicated or fatal coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Fatal disease has been linked with the uncontrolled “cytokine storm” manifesting with complications mostly in people with underlying cardiovascular and pulmonary disease conditions. The severity of COVID-19 disease and the associated mortality has been disproportionately lower in Africa and Asia in comparison to Europe and North America in terms of number of cases and deaths. While persons of colour who live in Europe and North America have been identified as a highly susceptible population due to a combination of several socioeconomic factors and poor access to quality healthcare, this has not been the case in sub-Saharan Africa where inhabitants are even more deprived concerning the said factors. On the contrary, sub-Saharan Africa has recorded the lowest levels of mortality and morbidity associated with the disease, and an overwhelming proportion of infections are asymptomatic. This review discusses the most probable reasons for the significantly fewer cases of severe COVID-19 disease and deaths in sub-Saharan Africa.

scholarly journals Strategies for mitigating an influenza pandemic with pre-pandemic H5N1 vaccines

2009 ◽  
Vol 7 (45) ◽  
pp. 573-586 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Milne ◽  
Joel Kelso ◽  
Heath Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Influenza Pandemic ◽  
Case Fatality ◽  
Vaccination Strategy ◽  
World Health ◽  
Developed Country ◽  
Influenza Outbreak ◽  
Vaccination Strategies ◽  
H5n1 Influenza ◽  
Reactive Strategy ◽  
Health Organization

The recent worldwide spread of the swine-origin H1N1 2009 influenza outbreak has resulted in its designation as a pandemic by the World Health Organization. While it appears to result in mild symptoms, concern still exists that a more severe influenza pandemic with a high case fatality ratio might arise by reassortment or mutation of the currently circulating avian influenza (H5N1) virus. Given that recently developed candidate pre-pandemic H5N1 vaccines have shown potential for cross-strain protection, we investigated alternative vaccination strategies that exploit such vaccines using an agent-based simulation model of an actual community of approximately 30 000 people in a developed country. Assuming that a two-dose vaccination regimen would be required, we examined three vaccination strategies: pre-emptive, with vaccination applied prior to emergence of human-transmissible H5N1 influenza; reactive, where vaccination was initiated immediately after the first cases in the community were diagnosed; and a ‘split’ strategy where the first dose was administered pre-emptively during the pre-pandemic phase, with the second dose administered reactively. We showed that by effectively moving the delay between first and second doses into the pre-pandemic period, the split vaccination strategy achieved a substantially better attack rate reduction than the reactive strategy. Our results for an influenza strain with a reproduction number of 1.5 suggest reactive vaccination strategies that may be applicable to the current H1N1 2009 pandemic.

scholarly journals High infectious disease burden as a basis for the observed high frequency of asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections in sub-Saharan Africa

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 2
Author(s):  
Kwadwo Asamoah Kusi ◽  
Augustina Frimpong ◽  
Frederica Dedo Partey ◽  
Helena Lamptey ◽  
Linda Eva Amoah ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
World Health ◽  
Susceptible Population ◽  
Mortality And Morbidity ◽  
Quality Healthcare ◽  
The World ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Health Organization

Following the coronavirus outbreaks described as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003 and the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) in 2012, the world has again been challenged by yet another corona virus, named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). SARS-CoV-2 infections were first detected in a Chinese Province in December 2019 and then declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization in March 2020. An infection caused by SARS-CoV-2 may result in asymptomatic, uncomplicated or fatal coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Fatal disease has been linked with the uncontrolled “cytokine storm” manifesting with complications mostly in people with underlying cardiovascular and pulmonary disease conditions. The severity of COVID-19 disease and the associated mortality has been disproportionately lower in terms of number of cases and deaths in Africa and also Asia in comparison to Europe and North America. Also, persons of colour residing in Europe and North America have been identified as a highly susceptible population due to a combination of several socioeconomic factors and poor access to quality healthcare. Interestingly, this has not been the case in sub-Saharan Africa where majority of the population are even more deprived of the aforementioned factors. On the contrary, sub-Saharan Africa has recorded the lowest levels of mortality and morbidity associated with the disease, and an overwhelming proportion of infections are asymptomatic. Whilst it can be argued that these lower number of cases in Africa may be due to challenges associated with the diagnosis of the disease such as lack of trained personnel and infrastructure, the number of persons who get infected and develop symptoms is proportionally lower than those who are asymptomatic, including asymptomatic cases that are never diagnosed. This review discusses the most probable reasons for the significantly fewer cases of severe COVID-19 disease and deaths in sub-Saharan Africa.

scholarly journals The parallels between COVID-19 and the Spanish flu of 1918

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (11) ◽  
pp. 4687
Author(s):  
Markordor Lyngdoh
Keyword(s):  
Vaccine Development ◽  
Influenza Pandemic ◽  
World Health ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
The World ◽  
Spanish Flu ◽  
Avian Origin ◽  
1918 Influenza ◽  
Novel Coronavirus ◽  
Health Organization

The 1918 influenza pandemic was the most severe pandemic in recent history. It was caused by an H1N1 virus with genes of avian origin. On the other hand, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic caused by a novel coronavirus hailed by the world health organization as a “once in a century health crisis” which has led to devastating impacts to health and livelihood the world over. The prevailing situation is reminiscent of the Spanish flu where definitive cure is unavailable and the public health measures like quarantine, social distancing, hand hygiene and isolation are the only alternatives. Both these diseases are transmitted through respiratory droplets, highly contagious and target the respiratory organs. The parallels between these two events cannot be denied. The Spanish flu thrived at a time when the knowledge and availability of antivirals and vaccine development were inadequate. This article strives to highlight a little more on these two separate pandemics and observe their similarities as well as their differences.

scholarly journals Influenza – our constant companion

2011 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 2
Author(s):  
Ian G Barr ◽  
Paul W Selleck
Keyword(s):  
Influenza A ◽  
Influenza Pandemic ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
World Health ◽  
Director General ◽  
Pandemic Preparedness ◽  
The World ◽  
Health Organization ◽  
2009 Influenza Pandemic ◽  
Novel Influenza A

On 11 June 2009, Dr Margaret Chan, the Director-General of the World Health Organization, announced to the world that following the emergence of a novel influenza A virus in late April 2009 and its extensive spread that, ?I have therefore decided to raise the level of influenza pandemic alert from phase 5 to phase 6. The world is now at the start of the 2009 influenza pandemic.? Dr Chan also commented, ?No previous pandemic has been detected so early or watched so closely, in real-time, right at the very beginning. The world can now reap the benefits of investments, over the last five years, in pandemic preparedness.? Also observed was that, ?Globally, we have good reason to believe that this pandemic, at least in its early days, will be of moderate severity?.

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