The BBC reports on the world’s reaction to the Swine Flu.
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The World Health Organization has a written summary repsonse to the Swine Flu outbreak. Their report was released on April 24th, 2009, and it is worth reading.
The following paragraph is particularily concerning:
Because there are human cases associated with an animal influenza virus, and because of the geographical spread of multiple community outbreaks, plus the somewhat unusual age groups affected, these events are of high concern.
This announcement was reported on Apr 26, 4:58 PM EDT by the Associated Press.
The term public health emergency sounds bad. However, it is important to understand that this declaration is a formality and a smart prepatory move. We are not saying that there isn’t an emergency — we really don’t know. But the announcement does not gurantee there is an emergency — it just smart planning.
“Really that’s what we’re doing right now. We’re preparing in an environment where we really don’t know ultimately what the size of seriousness of this outbreak is going to be.” — Napolitano