Reporting global health news

Thomas AbrahamJMSC 0042

3 important stories in the future

Bio terrorism Naturally occurring disease threats Newly emerging infectious disease

The 2001 anthrax attacks

Sept and October 2001- at least five letters with anthrax were mailed

3 to media organizations 2 to two US senators 22 people contracted anthrax 5 died

Robert Stevens, photo editor

“terrorists -- people who were either involved with, associated with, or are seeking to take advantage of the September 11 attacks -- are now poisoning our communities with anthrax.” John Ashcroft

US intelligence believes Iraq has the technology and supplies of anthrax suitable for terrorist use. 'They aren't making this stuff in caves in Afghanistan,' the CIA source said. 'This is prima facie evidence of the involvement of a state intelligence agency. Maybe Iran has the capability. But it doesn't look likely politically. That leaves Iraq.’

Bruce Ivens

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/history/famous-cases/anthrax-amerithrax/amerithrax-investigation

Smallpox as a weapon

While anthrax was dangerous, smallpox would be a lot more dangerous as a bio-weapon

Egyptian Pharoah Ramses V , 1157 BC (photo WHO)

Eradicated in 1979 after a global vaccination programme led by The WHO

Smallpox virus repositories

Official repositories: US CDC in Atlanta and a

Russian government lab, Koltsovo, Siberia

Through the Cold War period, both the United States and the Soviet Union developed bio-weapons. Other countries, including the UK, worked on bio weapons research

For more on this, go to an excellent PBS documentary “The Plague Wars

(www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/plague)

Soviet defector Kantjan Alibekov (Ken Alibek)

Soviet Union had weaponised and stored 20 tons of plague, 20 tons of smallpox, and “hundreds of tons of anthrax”

Dr Matthew Messelson,Harvard University

“we had developed tularemia as our standardized lethal weapon, Venezuelan equine encephalitis as our standardized non-lethal weapon. We had brucellosis weapons, we had anti-crop fungal weapons. We had a very impressive series of munitions, ready-to-go biological weapons”

Many developing countries want smallpox stocks destroyed If the virus is released, or used as a

weapon, poorer countries will have no access to vaccines

The United States, Russia and other countries say they need to keep these stocks for research into vaccines and drugs, in case terrorists or “rogue states” get hold of the smallpox virus

This year, there was no agreement at the WHO- will be considered again in three years time.

A story worth following…

Diseases as global political issues: the case of swine flu In April 2009, a new flu virus emerged

in Mexico and the United States, spreading rapidly.

Flu and public health experts were alarmed.

Where politics comes in

No country wants to be seen as harboring disease

No country wants to be seen as managing a disease outbreak badly

So they try and hide things..

Disputes on how the disease should be handled

China was criticised for putting Mexican tourists under quarantine in a hotel in Beijing

In China and elsewhere, people were critical of the US for not putting in health checks at airports to see that sick people did not travel and spread the disease

Disputes over vaccines and medicines

Flu vaccine manufacturers are concentrated in the richer countries (eg Glaxo Smith Kline in the UK, Sanofi Pasteur in France, Novartis in Switzerland, CSL in Australia).

Wealth countries had pre-booked vaccines, leaving little for other countries

WHO arranged for poorer countries to receive vaccines

Environmental change and disease

In 1997, giant forest fires broke out in Kalimantan and Borneo in Indonesia

1997 forest fires in Kalimantan and Borneo

Haze reaches Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand

1998. Perak, Malaysia

An unusual disease breaks out among people working in pig farms

High fever, muscle pain, convulsions and possible death

Pigs also affected, and transmitted the disease to humans

265 human cases, 105 deaths Eventually traced to a previously

unknown virus

Malaysia flying foxes

Emerging infectious diseases

Population growth has led humans to expand to new environments and come in contact with new pathogens

Social and cultural factors have contributed to the spread of new diseases

Globalization has led to the spread of new diseases

Most of them are zoonotic diseases= spreading from animals to humans

Disease is global

Viruses and bacteria do not recognise human borders

Disease fighting needs to be coordinated globally- which is what the WHO does

The International Health Regulations Tensions between what national and

international, between governments and the international community