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A pandemic is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has spread across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. Widespread endemic diseases with a stable number of infected individuals such as recurrences of seasonal influenza are generally excluded as they occur simultaneously in large regions of the globe rather than being spread worldwide.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and has six regional offices and 150 field offices worldwide.
An epidemic is the rapid spread of disease to a large number of hosts in a given population within a short period of time. For example, in meningococcal infections, an attack rate in excess of 15 cases per 100,000 people for two consecutive weeks is considered an epidemic.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is an Ethiopian public health official, researcher, diplomat, and the Director-General of the World Health Organization since 2017. Tedros is the first African to become WHO Director-General, receiving an endorsement for the role by the African Union. He played a role in the response to the Ebola virus epidemic, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the 2022–2023 mpox outbreak.
A public health emergency of international concern is a formal declaration by the World Health Organization (WHO) of "an extraordinary event which is determined to constitute a public health risk to other States through the international spread of disease and to potentially require a coordinated international response", formulated when a situation arises that is "serious, sudden, unusual, or unexpected", which "carries implications for public health beyond the affected state's national border" and "may require immediate international action". Under the 2005 International Health Regulations (IHR), states have a legal duty to respond promptly to a PHEIC. The declaration is publicized by an IHR Emergency Committee (EC) of international experts, which was developed following the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak.
An outbreak of cholera began in Yemen in October 2016. The outbreak peaked in 2017 with over 2,000 reported deaths in that year alone. In 2017 and 2019, war-torn Yemen accounted for 84% and 93% of all cholera cases in the world, with children constituting the majority of reported cases. As of November 2021, there have been more than 2.5 million cases reported, and more than 4,000 people have died in the Yemen cholera outbreak, which the United Nations deemed the worst humanitarian crisis in the world at that time. However, the outbreak has substantially decreased by 2021, with a successful vaccination program implemented and only 5,676 suspected cases with two deaths reported between January 1 and March 6 of 2021.
Disease X is a placeholder name that was adopted by the World Health Organization (WHO) in February 2018 on their shortlist of blueprint priority diseases to represent a hypothetical, unknown pathogen that could cause a future epidemic. The WHO adopted the placeholder name to ensure that their planning was sufficiently flexible to adapt to an unknown pathogen. Director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci stated that the concept of Disease X would encourage WHO projects to focus their research efforts on entire classes of viruses, instead of just individual strains, thus improving WHO capability to respond to unforeseen strains. In 2020, experts, including some of the WHO's own expert advisors, speculated that COVID-19, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus strain, met the requirements to be the first Disease X.
Chikwe Ihekweazu is a Nigerian epidemiologist, public health physician and the World Health Organization’s Assistant Director-General for Health Emergency Intelligence and Surveillance Systems.
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is a global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified in an outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019, and spread to other areas of Asia and then worldwide in early 2020. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) on 30 January 2020. The WHO ended its PHEIC declaration on 5 May 2023. As of 25 January 2024, the pandemic has caused 774,144,371 cases and 7,013,140 confirmed deaths, ranking it fifth in the list of the deadliest epidemics and pandemics in history.
Michael Joseph Ryan is an Irish epidemiologist and former trauma surgeon, specialising in infectious disease and public health. He is executive director of the World Health Organization's Health Emergencies Programme, leading the team responsible for the international containment and treatment of COVID-19. Ryan has held leadership positions and has worked on various outbreak response teams in the field to eradicate the spread of diseases including bacillary dysentery, cholera, Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever, Ebola, Marburg virus disease, measles, meningitis, relapsing fever, Rift Valley fever, SARS, and Shigellosis.
Flattening the curve is a public health strategy to slow down the spread of an epidemic, used against the SARS-CoV-2 virus during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. The curve being flattened is the epidemic curve, a visual representation of the number of infected people needing health care over time. During an epidemic, a health care system can break down when the number of people infected exceeds the capability of the health care system's ability to take care of them. Flattening the curve means slowing the spread of the epidemic so that the peak number of people requiring care at a time is reduced, and the health care system does not exceed its capacity. Flattening the curve relies on mitigation techniques such as hand washing, use of face masks and social distancing.
COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund was a global fund for supporting the work of the World Health Organization (WHO) in containing the COVID-19 pandemic. It was launched on 13 March 2020 by the United Nations Foundation and the Swiss Philanthropy Foundation in support of WHO, and was announced by the Director-General of WHO in Geneva, Switzerland. The fund ceased its active fundraising activities at the end of 2021, with further donations to be directed to the WHO Foundation.
Pandemic prevention is the organization and management of preventive measures against pandemics. Those include measures to reduce causes of new infectious diseases and measures to prevent outbreaks and epidemics from becoming pandemics.
The 1957–1958 Asian flu pandemic was a global pandemic of influenza A virus subtype H2N2 that originated in Guizhou in Southern China. The number of excess deaths caused by the pandemic is estimated to be 1–4 million around the world, making it one of the deadliest pandemics in history. A decade later, a reassorted viral strain H3N2 further caused the Hong Kong flu pandemic (1968–1969).
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a leading organisation involved in the global coordination for mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic within the broader United Nations response to the pandemic.
Planning and preparing for pandemics has happened in countries and international organizations. The World Health Organization writes recommendations and guidelines, though there is no sustained mechanism to review countries' preparedness for epidemics and their rapid response abilities. National action depends on national governments. In 2005–2006, before the 2009 swine flu pandemic and during the decade following it, the governments in the United States, France, UK, and others managed strategic health equipment stocks, but they often reduced stocks after the 2009 pandemic in order to reduce costs.
Part of managing an infectious disease outbreak is trying to delay and decrease the epidemic peak, known as flattening the epidemic curve. This decreases the risk of health services being overwhelmed and provides more time for vaccines and treatments to be developed. Non-pharmaceutical interventions that may manage the outbreak include personal preventive measures such as hand hygiene, wearing face masks, and self-quarantine; community measures aimed at physical distancing such as closing schools and cancelling mass gathering events; community engagement to encourage acceptance and participation in such interventions; as well as environmental measures such surface cleaning. It has also been suggested that improving ventilation and managing exposure duration can reduce transmission.
The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response was established by the Director-General of the World Health Organization in response to a resolution adopted in the 73rd World Health Assembly at the onset of COVID-19 pandemic. Its mission is to "provide an evidence-based path for the future", and is led by Co-Chairs Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the former President of Liberia and Helen Clark, the former Prime Minister of New Zealand.
References
- ↑ Oltermann, Philip (September 2021). "WHO opens pandemic intelligence hub to look out for future crises | World Health Organization". The Guardian. Retrieved 2021-10-18.
- ↑ "WHO–Germany collaboration for pandemic intelligence research - The Lancet Microbe". thelancet.com. Retrieved 2021-10-18.
- ↑ "Angela Merkel inaugurates WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence to analyse data on emerging health threats". firstpost.com. 2 September 2021. Retrieved 2021-10-18.
