World 'not ready for major pandemic'

The World Health Organisation needs reform, peers say

Monday, 21, Jul 2008 12:00

International institutions need quick reform if the world is to cope with the next major pandemic, it has been warned.

A report published today by the Lords' intergovernmental organisations committee concludes that the World Health Organisation (WHO) urgently needs to improve its surveillance and response systems to infectious diseases.

It says an influenza pandemic is "overdue" and that when it, not if, it comes "the effects could be devastating".

Only urgent investment in surveillance in the most likely source countries will help mitigate the impacts of this inevitable pandemic.

"This is unlikely to hit the headlines and its impact may not be immediately apparent, but it is vital to us all," the report concludes.

Peers want the government to back long-term funding incentives for pharmaceutical companies in addition to improving the performance of WHO.

"Given the threats to global health which we face from newly emerging infectious diseases, a dysfunctional organizational structure within the world's principal policy-making, standard-setting and surveillance body simply cannot be afforded," it adds.

The report is most fearful of the impact of pandemic influenza, which – if it comes in the form of bird flu – could prove much worse than the mild pandemics of 1958 and 1968.

It points to evidence it has received suggesting another pandemic is "inevitable" and that it will kill up to 75,000 people in the UK.

"In other words, we have in pandemic flu an infection which is not yet with us but which, when it arrives, is likely to have a devastating, if relatively shortlived, impact," it warns.