MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

“Landmark entry” into force of global health regulations

The United Nations health agency announced the “landmark” entry into force this week of a set of regulations aimed at making the world more secure from threats to global health, while minimizing disruption to travel, trade and economies.

The revised International Health Regulations represent "a major step forward in international public health security," the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a press release. The legally-binding agreement will "significantly contribute to international public health security" by providing a new framework defining the rights, obligations, and procedures in ensuring international health security without unnecessary interference in international traffic and trade. After the World Health Assembly reached agreement on the regulations in 2005, States party to it were given two years to assess their national capacities and develop actions plans to meet the requirements of the regulations, prior to their entry into force on 15 June 2007. On taking effect, the regulations will improve the capacity of all countries to detect, assess, notify and respond to threats from diseases that may rapidly spread from one country to another, including a new human influenza virus and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) - a flu-like disease that over a nine-month period in 2002-2003 infected more than 8,000 people, killing nearly 10 per cent of them, mostly in China and elsewhere in Asia. The threats also come from other public health emergencies that may affect populations across borders, such as chemical spills, leaks and dumping or nuclear meltdowns. "SARS was a wake-up call for all of us. It spread faster than we had predicted and was only contained through intensive cooperation between countries which prevented this new disease from gaining a foothold," WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan said. "Today, the greatest threat to international public health security would be influenza pandemic. The threat of a pandemic has not receded, but implementation of the [regulations] will help the world to be better prepared for the possibility of a pandemic," she added. WHO says it has already developed and built an improved events management system to manage potential public health emergencies. It has also built strategic operations centers at its Geneva headquarters and in regional offices around the world, which are available round-the-clock to manage emergencies. In addition, WHO has been working with its partners to strengthen the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network, which brings together experts from around the world to respond to disease emergencies. In another development, WHO announced earlier this week that it is working with vaccine manufacturers to move ahead on plans to create a global stockpile of vaccine for the H5N1 avian influenza virus, or bird flu. The announcement follows a request by the World Health Assembly last month for WHO to establish an international stockpile of the vaccine. WHO also welcomed the announcement of global pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline that it will contribute to the global vaccine stockpile. Omninvest of Hungary, Baxter and sanofi pasteur have also indicated their willingness to make some of their H5N1 vaccine available. Dr. Chan welcomed the contributions from the vaccines industry, which she called "another significant step towards creating a global resource to help the world and especially to help developing countries in case of a major outbreak". (UN)