New diseases emerge at alarming rate:
The World Health Report 2007
The World Health Organization released its annual report today, with emphasis on the changing world situation regarding communicable diseases. In her report, Inspector General Dr. Margaret Chan noted that since 1951, when the WHO issued its first set of legally binding regulations to prevent the international spread of disease, much has changed.
In 1951, Chan noted, the disease situation was “relatively stable,” with only six quarantinable diseases of relative concern: cholera, plague, relapsing fever, smallpox, typhus, and yellow fever. “New diseases were rare,” Chan said, “and miracle drugs had revolutionized the care of many well-known infections.”
Fast forward to 2007, when the WHO is dealing with several diseases of lesser concern in 1951—such as tuberculosis—making a dangerous comeback in drug-resistant form, plus an array of diseases not heard of in 1951: AIDS, SARS, avian flu, Ebola, Mad Cow disease, hemorrhagic fever—just to name a few.
“The disease situation [now] is anything but stable,” Chan said. “Population growth, incursion into previously uninhabited areas, rapid urbanization, intensive farming practices, environmental degradation, and the misuse of antimicrobials have disrupted the equilibrium of the microbial world.”
Perhaps most alarming, Chan noted that “new diseases are emerging at the historically unprecedented rate of one per year.” What’s more, she said, “during the last five years, WHO has verified more than 1100 epidemic events worldwide.”
Air travel, she pointed out, moves over 2 billion people per year, making it possible for a disease to spread internationally as soon as it emerges.
Consequently, she is urging worldwide adoption of the International Health Regulations (2005) that came into effect in June 2007. These new regulations are designed to be more proactive than previous WHO regulations, and if fully enforced and practiced globally, would give the WHO far greater power to deal with international health emergencies.
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