The world may be ready to handle a pandemic – WHO
April 27, 2009 by
Filed under Break Daily News
Keiji Fukuda, interim director general of health safety and environment, also said that WHO had started preliminary work with the laboratories to develop a vaccine against swine flu, if necessary.
“I think the world is much better prepared than before to respond to this type of situation,” Fukuda said in a teleconference on outbreaks of swine flu in United States and Mexico.
“The last five years we have put in the best position to handle this situation,” said the manager.
WHO had reserves of 5 million sets of the antiviral treatment Tamiflu, made by Swiss drug maker Roche Holding AG, which has proven to be effective in combating the virus, he said. Countries and regions also have reservations.
“If this scale, then I think clearly the demand for antivirals and then this will also increase both reserves and likely will require an increased production of this drug,” said Fukuda.
There was “no evidence” that people are being infected with the new strain of the virus have been exposed to pigs or pork, said in response to reports that some countries were banning imports of beef from Mexico.
read more :
Mexico – 22 deaths confirmed by swine flu
U.S. health emergency declared by the outbreak of swine flu – world pandemia
