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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (157726)	2/3/2005 6:52:09 PM
From: GST	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Ask yourself, who has bird flu? Do you know? Bird flu does not exist outside of a few isolated cases in Vietnam and other countries in that part of the world. Who do you think rallies the scientific effort to track developments and monitor country-level responses? WHO is not in the vaccine business at all. WHO is in the business of convening responses to global health issues and coordinating global responses -- bird flu being one of many examples. I find the ignorance of the UN in the US to be astounding.

To: TimF who wrote (157726)	2/4/2005 5:08:40 PM
From: GST	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

WHO: Efforts to Eradicate Polio on Track Fri Feb 4,12:17 PM ET Health - AP By SAM CAGE, Associated Press Writer GENEVA - The number of polio cases reported in Asia fell by almost half last year, meaning that efforts to eradicate the disease on the continent by the end of 2005 are on course, the World Health Organization (news - web sites) said Friday. Africa, however, remains a problem. Total cases in the three Asian countries that still have polio — Afghanistan (news - web sites), India and Pakistan — fell to 186 last year from 336 in 2003, after those nations' political leaders lent personal support to mass campaigns to immunize 210 million children. "Similar momentum this year should put an end to the transmission of polio in this particularly crowded corner of the world, which has proven a challenge to global eradication efforts," WHO said. The health ministers of the three Asian countries met at WHO headquarters this week to work out a plan to wipe out the crippling disease. They decided to initiate two immunization campaigns in the six states and provinces where polio is present, to be followed by more widespread vaccination efforts throughout the rest of their countries, which are free from the disease, WHO said. "It's looking very good for India, Pakistan and Afghanistan," Dr. David Heymann, who is overseeing WHO's effort to eradicate polio, told The Associated Press. "Hopefully this will do it," Heymann said, adding that the immunization campaigns "will be phenomenal." WHO has set a target to wipe out polio worldwide by the end of this year, but a vaccine boycott in Nigeria hampered WHO's efforts. The boycott spawned a resurgence of the disease across Africa, infecting children in formerly polio-free countries. Muslim clerics led the boycott, saying the polio vaccine was a U.S.-led plot to render Nigeria's Muslims infertile or infect them with AIDS (news - web sites). Vaccination programs restarted in Nigeria in July 2004 and WHO also boosted immunization across Africa. The number of new cases in Africa rose to 1,040 last year from 389 the previous year. Despite the setback, WHO still plans to eradicate the disease on the continent. "I think we'll have good progress. Whether or not it can be completely wiped out, we don't know, but we're hoping so," Heymann said. "The target is the end of 2005, and there's never been a greater engagement of top-level people than right now." Polio (news - web sites) is a waterborne disease that usually infects young children, attacking the nervous system and causing paralysis, muscular atrophy, deformation and sometimes death. news.yahoo.com