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Showing posts with label World Health Organization (WHO). Show all posts
Showing posts with label World Health Organization (WHO). Show all posts

Saturday, May 22, 2021

Lame Indian media and politicians resort to ‘lab leak’ lie to shift focus

India is at a critical moment of fighting the virus. Yet some Indian media outlets and politicians are still manipulating politics, slandering China with an attempt to shift contradictions away from their failed policies. India has descended into a COVID-19 mess. Indian media and politicians should bear a large part of the blame. It's a tragedy for the Indian people.

In recent days, some news channels in India have been busy spreading the groundless conspiracy theories that "the coronavirus is a bio-weapon created in a Wuhan lab." As the new wave of COVID-19 wreaks havoc on India, they have hyped up conspiracy theories and old lies cooked up by some Western media and politicians last year, baselessly accusing China of "weaponizing the virus." Some Indian media's professionalism, cognition and sense of social responsibility are really jaw-dropping.

With India caught up in the crisis and as criticisms of the Indian government's response increase, the "lab leak" conspiracy theory has attracted some new attention in India, ranging from news channels to politicians. Earlier this month, some Indian ministers and BJP leaders shared an article on Twitter. The article warned Indians not to fall into the opposition's trap of making Prime Minister Narendra Modi the scapegoat. It said, "very few are talking about China and the possibility that the virus has been unleashed to weaken India."

The "lab leak" theory has been largely discarded by the world. A World Health Organization report in late March concluded that it's "extremely unlikely" that the virus was leaked from a lab. It's really ridiculous and clumsy for some Indian media outlets to flog a dead horse. And it's easy to figure out their real purpose.

Long Xingchun, a senior research fellow with the Academy of Regional and Global Governance at the Beijing Foreign Studies University and president of the Chengdu Institute of World Affairs, said the purpose of hyping the "lab leak" theory is obvious: deflecting public attention. With no sign of abating, the raging epidemic in India has aggravated public dissatisfaction.

By hyping-up the "lab leak" theory, some Indian media outlets and politicians are attempting to divert the public's anger to China. "For countries with an electoral system like India, the top consideration for some politicians is not people's health and lives, but votes. Accusing China of unleashing the virus to weaken India provides a good excuse for India to defend its anti-epidemic response and economic downturn," Long said.

China has refuted the lies of the "lab leak" theory many times. China has strictly fulfilled its obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention and does not develop, research or produce bio-weapons.

If the Indian media and politicians are really keen on figuring out whether the virus is a bio-weapon, they should ask Washington to clarify the US' biological militarization activities inside and outside the country and to disclose the real purpose of its more than 200 biological laboratories overseas. India could also demand an international inquiry.

It looks like some Indian media outlets and politicians are resorting to the old scheme of the former Trump administration, which tried every possible means to shift the blame onto China for its failed coronavirus response.

Just have a look at the results of Trump and his failed secretary of state Mike Pompeo. They didn't focus on fighting the epidemic, but instead played tricks to politicize the virus, concocting political manipulations to discredit China. As a result, the US witnessed the highest COVID-19 death toll. This became the main reason why Trump lost the election.

Since the second wave of COVID-19 outbreak hit India, China has expressed its goodwill and taken concrete actions to provide necessary support and help to India. China has sent life-saving supplies such as ventilators, oxygen generators, masks and medicines to India. This has shown China's goodwill and humanitarianism.

However, some Indian media outlets and politicians are requiting kindness with ingratitude. They have slandered China's help, tried to play the Taiwan card, attempted to sow discord between China and neighboring countries, and devilishly spread rumors and lies to discredit China. They are shameless and have no moral bottom. What they are now doing is no different from creating a humanitarian disaster in India. It's the Indian people that will have to bear this egregious suffering.

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Saturday, May 8, 2021

WHO approval of Chinese vaccine will largely accelerate COVAX supply; Chinese vaccines top safety ranking

 

China's Sinopharm vaccine approved by WHO for global use https://newseu.cgtn.com/news/2021-05-07/Sinopharm-vaccine-approved-by-WHO-for-global-use-104LK27VVcc/index.html via @cgtnofficial 
 
 

The WHO's emergency approval of China's COVID-19 vaccine will boost global vaccine supply amid shortfall as China's overall yearly production capacity is approaching five billion doses, observers said.

The WHO gave Emergency Use Listing (EUL) to Sinopharm's COVID-19 vaccine on Friday afternoon, making it the sixth vaccine and the first made by a non-Western country to receive WHO validation for its safety, efficacy and quality. This will send a statement to Western media's doubts and questions over the vaccine's authenticity, observers noted.

The other five COVID-19 vaccines previously approved by the WHO were made by Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and Moderna.

The approval allows Sinopharm to become a qualified supplier to the COVAX platform that aims to provide two billion doses to developing countries and regions by the end of 2021. As of Friday, 54 million doses had been delivered to 121 participants of the program.

India was supposed to deliver one billion shots through COVAX, but the plan has been halted due to the ongoing severe outbreak in the country.

With a huge supply-demand gap, the world is in urgent need for Chinese vaccines. In most low-income regions, Chinese vaccines are the only choice they have. This comes as the US and Europe are busy grabbing and overbuying shots for themselves, experts said.

The emergency approval for Chinese vaccines will largely expand COVAX supply as China's production is likely to reach five billion doses by the end of this year, Tao Lina, a Shanghai-based vaccine expert, told the Global Times on Saturday.

Chinese manufacturers are already providing vaccines to about 80 countries. The Global Times learned from Sinovac, another Chinese manufacturer whose COVID-19 vaccine is undergoing WHO review for EUL and the result is scheduled to come out next week, that they had produced 300 million doses as of April 28 with about 60 percent being delivered overseas.

On Thursday, Sinopharm announced the completion of phase-three construction of its production factory for the Beijing institute vaccine. It is the world's largest COVID-19 vaccine production factory and will ramp up the group's production capacity to three billion per year.

Sinovac has said that their production capacity will reach two billion doses per year after their production factory is completed in June.

Some experts have expressed concerns over challenges in delivery and application. Especially due to the underdeveloped infrastructure in most developing regions, but Chinese manufacturers are making efforts to tackle these challenges.

The Sinopharm product is an inactivated vaccine called SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine (Vero Cell) that can be delivered through common cold chain with temperatures between 2 C and 8 C. While Moderna vaccine has to be stored in a temperature of at least -20 C, while the Pfizer vaccine at -70 C.

Sinopharm vaccine's easy storage requirements make it highly suitable for low-resource settings, WHO said in a statement on Friday.

It is also the first vaccine that will carry a vaccine vial monitor. The vial monitor is a small sticker on the vaccine vial that change color when the vaccine is exposed to heat, letting health workers know whether the vaccine can be safely used, according to the statement.

The sticker clearly shows the degree of over exposure to high temperatures and ensure the safety of the vaccine's application in different environments, Tao said.

China can assist regions with unsatisfactory infrastructure conditions with cold-chain vehicles as well as training for health workers on vaccination, experts noted.

Some foreign news medias had long been questioning the efficacy and safety of the Sinopharm vaccine due to fewer data on its clinical trials. The data had not been released until the latest document uploaded by the WHO on the assessment of Sinopharm's vaccine.

The WHO document confirms experts have an "overall confidence" in its ability to prevent COVID-19, while having "low confidence" on the risk of side effects for older patients.

WHO said in the Friday statement that they are not recommending an upper age limit for the vaccine because preliminary data and supportive immunogenicity data suggest the vaccine is likely to have a protective effect in older people. "There is no theoretical reason to believe that the vaccine has a different safety profile in older and younger populations."

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In the safety ranking, the top four are all Chinese vaccines

 -  reported by The New York Times on Feb 5, 2021.

 
 1. Sinopharm (China)
 2. Sinovac (China)
 3. Kexing (China)
 4. Can Sino (China)
 5. AstraZeneca (UK)
 6. Pfizer (United States and Germany)
 7. Modena (United States)
 8. Johnson & Johnson (United States)
 9. Novavax (United States)
 10. Satellite 5 (Russia)
 Sinopharm has two vaccines, ranking first and second respectively.
 
China has exported more than 500 million doses of vaccines to more than 50 countries around the world, and it is estimated that hundreds of millions of people have been vaccinated. And China's vaccine accident rate is lower and safer.
 
 As reported by Western media, many wealthy people in Britain fly to the UAE to vaccinate Chinese national medicine.

 
 
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Wednesday, March 31, 2021

WHO-China joint report on virus origins:Wuhan Lab-leak is "extremely unlikely", ‘more states should be probed’...

 

The headquarters of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland

Highlights from WHO-China joint report on coronavirus origins: -A lab leak was "extremely unlikely" -Huanan seafood market was NOT the original source of the outbreak -It’s important to investigate “potential early events” of COVID-19 cases in different countries


Peter Ben Embarek (center) talks with Liang Wannian (left) and Marion Koopmans (right) after a press conference to wrap up a visit by an international team of experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) in the city of Wuhan, in Central China's Hubei Province on Tuesday. Photo: AFP
Peter Ben Embarek (center) talks with Liang Wannian (left) and Marion Koopmans (right) after a press conference to wrap up a visit by an international team of experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) in the city of Wuhan, in Central China's Hubei

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If WHO scientists cannot find the answer in China regarding coronavirus origins, maybe it's time for scientists to dig somewhere else and test more hypotheses to solve the mystery, Chinese scientists from the WHO-China virus tracing team suggested, after a joint WHO-China report on tracing the origins of coronavirus was released on Tuesday, which still leaves the virus origins question unanswered.
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The report, generated after WHO experts visited Wuhan, the Chinese city first reporting a COVID-19 case, dismissed the "lab-leak" conspiracy theory, and recommended transmissions between animals and humans, and transmissions through frozen food, which is consistent with what WHO experts said in a February conference in Wuhan. It also suggested the 7th Military World Games, which was held in Wuhan in October 2019, two months before the first case in this city was reported, is worth digging into.
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Before official release on Tuesday, Western politicians and media once again cast the report, pre-leaked to media earlier, in doubt, questioning the investigation's transparency , impartiality and the involvement of Chinese government in the writing of the report. Chinese experts in this joint team refuted such baseless claims, saying the Chinese side has provided what it could, and it is willing to assist any further origins investigation in other places since it has mature technology on virus detecting and tracing.
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The report pointed to a possible path of transmission between animals and humans and transmission through frozen food. It also said that the lab-leak theory is "extremely unlikely", which is consistent with what Peter Ben Embarek, a Danish food safety scientist leading the WHO team, said in Wuhan in early February, when wrapping up the WHO visit.
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The Chinese Foreign Ministry said Tuesday night it appreciates the scientific, diligent and professional spirit of the WHO-China expert team and calls for further investigation in other countries and places to trace the virus origins as it is a global task after WHO released the joint report.
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Politicizing the tracing work will only seriously hamper global cooperation on virus tracing, undermine global anti-epidemic efforts and lead to more loss of life. This runs counter to the desire of the international community to unite and fight the epidemic, FM said in a statement released on Tuesday night.
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The WHO report also touched upon the hypothesis of the 7th Military World Games regarding virus origins, a possibility previously raised by a Chinese epidemiologist. The WHO report said that "no appreciable signals of clusters of fever or severe respiratory disease requiring hospitalization were identified during a review of these events," but recommended a further joint review of the data on respiratory illness from on-site clinics during the games.
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"The hypothesis was raised by foreign experts during our communication," a Chinese expert from the joint team's animals and environment group told the Global Times. He said that large international events need to be considered as an option during origins tracing work of an epidemic.
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The Chinese expert, who asked for anonymity, said that they obtained records from the Wuhan government, which show many countries had transported food to Wuhan during the event, many via cold chain route. "But now we only have records, no samples, so it will be difficult for us to find the evidence," he admitted.
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The scientist also said it is highly probable that the virus was transmitted via cold chain, given the fact that cold chains triggered most of the later outbreaks in China after the one in Wuhan. "But at the early stage, all eyes were fixed on animals, so not enough samples were connected in the cold chain environment," said the expert, suggesting further research in this area.
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The WHO report further suggests that animals in livestock farms in Southeast Asia could be "linked to early human cases" and that further study on these farms is needed.
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The anonymous expert said that given the geographic adjacency and frequent exchanges between China and Southeast Asia countries, such a proposal is reasonable.
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"Yunnan borders Southeast Asia, and bats travel frequently, which gives rise to the possibility of passing the virus to other animals and between each other," he said, noting that a batch of pangolins, which tested positive for coronavirus, were smuggled from other countries.
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At a Friday conference, Feng Zijian, Deputy Director-General of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China's CDC), who is also the expert of the WHO joint team, said that there is a virus highly similar to COVID-19 in bats and pangolins in terms of virus sequencing. However, it's proven not to be a direct ancestor, while more animal species, including minks and cats, are worthy of inquiry as likely potential natural hosts of the virus.
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According to the report, data suggests that the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, where large clusters of infections were found, was not the original source of the outbreak.
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"The place which saw the first outbreak does not necessarily make it the origins of the virus," another member of the joint expert team, who preferred anonymity, told the Global Times.
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The expert said there's nothing strange about the fact that a scientific conclusion about the virus has yet to be found. On the other hand, it implies the difficulty in tracing virus origins. "Virus origins tracing work of previous large-scale epidemics was conducted by scientists in different countries and regions," said the scientist, urging global virus tracing, especially since mounting evidence suggesting that there were positive coronavirus samples found in other countries before the Wuhan outbreak.
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He suggested further study of positive coronavirus samples found in human and environment before January 2020.
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China has done what it can do in helping find the origins of the virus. If the answer could not be found here, maybe it's time to find it in other places, and test more hypotheses, according to the expert from joint team's animals and environment group. China is willing to assist virus origins tracing work in other places, as it has already grasped such technologies and methodologies, the expert said.
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Doubt from West
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Western media and politicians could not wait to fire torrents of criticism toward the report, which was leaked to some media before its publication.
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Among the most vocal critics were US media outlets such as the New York Times and Washington Post, which questioned the report's impartiality as they hyped that WHO experts weren't given full access in Wuhan and the Chinese government exerted pressure on the UN body.
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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN last week that he had concerns about "the methodology and the process," including "the fact that the government in Beijing apparently helped write it."
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Such accusation was slammed by Zhao Lijian, spokesperson of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday.
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"The US kept showing its 'concerns' over the report. Is it attempting to exert pressure on WHO experts?" Zhao asked. "Please ask the experts which parts of the report the Chinese government helped them to write. Does China's facilitation on traceability research also behind-the-scenes manipulation?"
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"What they needed, we gave them, including files," said the expert, explaining certain documents were restricted because it involved patients' sensitive personal information.
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In an exclusive interview with the Global Times, Liang Wannian, team leader of the Chinese side of the WHO-China joint expert team, said that the Chinese side showed the WHO experts raw data one by one, such as the early case database and epidemiological survey forms of field use.
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Foreign experts, including Peter Daszak, a British-born zoologist, who is president of the NGO EcoHealth Alliance in New York City, and Peter Ben Embarek from the WHO team, have repeatedly denied accusation of limited access in Wuhan.
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Those Western countries only want WHO to pinpoint Wuhan as the origins of the virus, and better prove the virus was leaked from lab; if not, they just launched a smear campaign at China, said experts.

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Scientific spirit of US media outlets is dead: Global Times editorial  

When it comes to putting their political stance in priority, they are no less proactive than politicians

The US has been doing the worst job in the global pandemic fight. It not only has been jealous of and attacked China's excellent response to the pandemic, but it has also exerted pressure on WHO. Washington is rude. It has torn down all kinds of common sense about public health and humiliated science with politics. 
 
 

Attacks on WHO report dismissed

After a joint WHO-China report on tracing the origins of COVID-19 dismissed the possibility of the virus being leaked from ..

 

'Virus unlikely from the lab' | The Star

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Washington’s greatest enemy is the facts and the good consciences of scientists


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Friday, January 31, 2020

Coronavirus outbreak: WHO declares an international public health emergency

https://youtu.be/8NnNunRXR80

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday said that the novel coronavirus outbreak has become a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).

However, the UN health body stressed that it does not recommend limiting trade and travel.

It also once again spoke highly of China's prevention and containment measures.

A WHO declaration of an international public health emergency is rare, with only five going into effect in the past decade. These include situations concerning the 2009 H1 virus that caused an influenza pandemic, West Africa's Ebola outbreak, polio in 2014, the Zika virus in 2016 and the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

No need to overreact on coronavirus PHEIC label: analysts 


The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the novel coronavirus a global public health emergency (PHEIC), emphasizing that it was not a vote of no confidence in China. Chinese analysts said there is no need to overreact to the declaration while fighting the virus, although it could add extra pressure to the world's second-largest economy.

Over the past few weeks, we have witnessed the emergence of a previously unknown pathogen, which has escalated into an outbreak, and which has been met by an unprecedented response, said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at a press conference in Geneva, Switzerland on Thursday.

At least 98 novel coronavirus cases have been reported in 18 countries, including eight human-to-human transmissions in Germany, Japan, Vietnam, and the US. The majority of the cases outside of China involved people who had traveled to Wuhan, or were in contact with someone who had visited the city, said Ghebreyesus.

After considering multiple factors, WHO designated the coronavirus as a PHEIC. However, WHO continues to have confidence in China's ability to control the outbreak.

Chinese analysts said it was not necessary to overreact or interpret the news as a hostile attitude toward China from the global community. The shared priority is to prevent the deadly virus from spreading across the globe.

"Indeed, it may give extra pressure to China, with both economic and political implications," Shen Yi, director at the Research Center for Cyberspace Governance of Fudan University, told the Global Times.

"But it's up to how China continues fighting the epidemic in order to help its economy recovered," Yi said, noting that the WHO decision has little influence on how other countries handle economic ties with China amid the pneumonia outbreak.

Serious events that endanger international health are considered to be PHEIC as it constitutes a risk to other countries through the spread of the disease, which is also "serious, unusual, or unexpected," and carries implications for public health beyond the affected country's borders or requires immediate international action, according to WHO.

A PHEIC declaration is rare, as only five have been made in the past decade including the H1N1 virus that caused an influenza pandemic in 2009, West Africa's Ebola, polio in 2014, the Zika virus in 2016, and the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo that started in 2019.

Concerns have emerged over whether other countries would close their borders or impose trade and travel restrictions, which has happened in the past when a PHEIC is declared.

There is no reason for measures that unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade, WHO said, calling for all countries to implement decisions that are evidence-based and consistent after it declares novel coronavirus a global public health emergency.

According to the International Health Regulations (IHR), if the WHO declares a PHEIC, the director-general shall issue temporary recommendations including health measures regarding people, baggage, cargo, containers, conveyances, goods, and postal parcels to prevent or reduce the spread of the disease and avoid unnecessary interference with international traffic.

However, temporary recommendations are non-binding advisories issued by WHO and are on a time-limited, risk-specific basis, according to IHR.

When WHO declared the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo as a PHEIC, the organization emphasized it was essential to avoid the punitive economic consequences of travel and trade restrictions on affected communities, in a statement published on its website in July 2019.

Under the IHR, countries implementing additional health measures going beyond what WHO recommends will be obliged to send public health rationale and justification within 48 hours of implementation for WHO to review, said WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic to the Global Times on Thursday.

WHO is obliged to share the information about measures and the justification received with other countries involved, Jasarevic said, noting that countries are asked to provide public health justification for any travel or trade measures that are not scientifically based, such as the refusal of entry based on suspect cases or unaffected persons to affected areas.

Yang Gonghuan, former director of tobacco control at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told the Global Times that WHO would depend on the situation of the epidemic rather than targeting a specific place or for political purposes.

In response to concerns that a PHEIC would "hold China's breath," Yang said such thinking is "incorrect and unreasonable."

"WHO's decision and measures are based on the perspective of global disease prevention," Yang said.

However, the PHEIC label could frighten contracting countries to the point that they could disobey WHO recommendations and impose more stringent limits on travel and trade with the country where the virus originated, which would create significant economic losses.

During the H1N1 pandemic in 2009, WHO stressed the virus could not spread through pork products and yet over 40 countries banned pork imports from H1N1-affected nations, according to media reports.

Contracting states have agreed to follow WHO guidelines, and they should act within the forum of the organization, Yang noted.

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US Tibet bill interference in China's internal affairs

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Monday, May 5, 2014

WHO's Alarm Bells: Antibiotic Resistance Now a 'Major Threat to Public Health'

The world's leading health organization is sounding serious alarm bells about the problem of antibiotic resistance.


In its first report on the issue ever, the World Health Organization (WHO) is sounding alarms about the issue of antibiotic resistance and the global public health threats it poses to our increasingly interconnected world.

"The problem is so serious that it threatens the achievements of modern medicine. A post-antibiotic era—in which common infections and minor injuries can kill—is a very real possibility for the 21st century," the report states.

Antibiotic resistance occurs when bacteria no longer die when treated with antibiotics. As a result, doctors have to use stronger, more potent antibiotics, and the more those are used, the more resistance bacteria develop to those as well. The WHO is warning that we're reaching a point in which the strongest antibiotics doctors have in their arsenal, the "treatment of last resort" drugs as they're called, no longer work.

And in fact, it's no longer just bacteria that are becoming resistant. The WHO has stopped referring to the problem as "antibiotic resistance" and now calls it "antimicrobial resistance," to encompass other organisms, such as viruses and parasites, that no longer respond to the drugs of choice. Namely, treating the viruses tuberculosis and HIV, and malaria (a parasite), has become harder as these diseases become resistant to medications. Even H1N1, the so-called "swine flu" that reached pandemic levels in 2009, has begun developing resistance to potent antiviral drugs.

Resistance Is a Worldwide Problem

One of the major points of the report is that diseases that used to be restricted to certain locales are now spreading internationally:

Among their key findings:
• Resistance to the treatment of last resort for life-threatening infections caused by a common intestinal bacteria, Klebsiella pneumonia—carbapenem antibiotics—has spread to all regions of the world. K. pneumoniae is a major cause of hospital-acquired infections such as pneumonia, bloodstream infections, infections in newborns and intensive-care unit patients. In some countries, because of resistance, carbapenem antibiotics would not work in more than half of people treated for K. pneumoniae infections.

• Treatment failure to the last resort of treatment for gonorrhea—third generation cephalosporins—has been confirmed in Austria, Australia, Canada, France, Japan, Norway, Slovenia, South Africa, Sweden and the United Kingdom. More than 1 million people are infected with gonorrhoea around the world every day.

• People with MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) are estimated to be 64 percent more likely to die than people with a non-resistant form of the infection. MRSA, which can cause septic bloodstream infections when exposed to broken skin, is one of the most common "community-acquired" resistant infections, meaning you're likely to pick it up anywhere other people are—your gym, place of worship, a nearby park or even at schools. In the Americas, as many as 90 percent of staph infections are reported to be MRSA.

• There hasn't been a new class of antibiotics developed since the late 1980s.

We Can't Track What We Don't Know

The WHO is calling on countries all over the world to step up their surveillance of these deadly infections, something that happens rarely, if at all. An investigative report, "Hunting the Nightmare Bacteria," that ran on the PBS program Frontline in October 2013 revealed that public health officials in the U.S. have little to no data on the extent of antimicrobial resistance in this country. Healthcare facilities aren't required to report outbreaks, the report found, and many don't because they don't want to scare people or have to deal with bad PR.

“It is frankly embarrassing that we as a country do not know where resistance is occurring, how bad the problem is for various organisms or who’s using what antibiotics when,” Brad Spellberg, MD, an infectious disease doctor at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, said in the documentary.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated that antimicrobial resistant infections hit two million people a year and kill at least 23,000. But the WHO notes that in most countries around the world, including the U.S., often only the most severe infections are documented and minor community-acquired infections (which can get passed along repeatedly and wind up as a severe infection) go unreported.

Clean Up the Food Supply!

For quite possibly the first time, the WHO also called out the food industry for its contribution to antimicrobial resistance. " The use of antibiotics in animal husbandry—including in livestock, poultry and fish farming—are leading to increasing recognition that urgent action is needed to avoid inappropriate use, and to reduce antibiotic usage in animal husbandry and aquaculture, as well as in humans," the report states. In the U.S., 80 percent of antibiotics sold go into animal feed to prevent infections in healthy animals or to speed growth. And we're not alone. "In many countries, the total amount of antibiotics used in animals (both food-producing and companion animals), measured as gross weight, exceeds the quantity used in the treatment of disease in humans," the authors found.

The same classes of antibiotics used on these animals are the same as those given to humans. In particular, fluoroquinolones, antibiotics used widely in the poultry industry, are increasingly ineffective against urinary tract infections caused by drug-resistant E. coli bacteria, which have been detected on all forms of supermarket meat, and against MRSA soft-tissue and skin infections.

Numerous groups in the U.S. have sued the Food and Drug Administration to revoke its approvals in animals for antibiotics that are valuable for humans. The agency's only response has been to set voluntary guidelines for the industry.

What You Can Do

Despite the damage factory farming has done to antibiotic effectiveness, the WHO and other public health officials insist that the first line of defense in controlling the problem of antimicrobial resistance is the healthcare setting: Stopping doctors from giving patients antibiotics for conditions they aren't designed to treat, for instance, when you're given antibiotics for a cold that's caused by a virus, not bacteria.

• Don't automatically ask for antibiotics when you feel sick and visit a doctor.

• If your doctor prescribes an antibiotic, ask if there's an alternative before just accepting the advice. Some doctors feel compelled to offer the drugs to make people feel better, but asking for an alternative can open up a dialogue about other options.

• When you do need an antibiotic, take the full course, even if you're feeling better.

• Wash your hands frequently to protect yourself from community-acquired infections, and keep your hands away from your nose, eyes and mouth, where infections can enter.

Contributed by  By EMILY MAIN

 Where Health Meets Life


Alarm bells over antibiotic resistance 

The World Health Organisation’s most comprehensive report to date sounds a warning that we are entering a world where antibiotics have little effect.

THE World Health Organisation (WHO) has sounded a warning that many types of disease-causing bacteria can no longer be treated with the usual antibiotics and the benefits of modern medicine are increasingly being eroded.

The comprehensive 232-page report on anti-microbial resistance with data from 114 countries shows how this threat is happening now in every region of the world and can affect anyone in any country.

Antibiotic resistance – when bacteria evolve so that antibiotics no longer work to treat infections – is described by the report as “a problem so serious that it threatens the achievements of modern medicine”.

“A post-antibiotic era, in which common infections and minor injuries can kill, far from being an apocalyptic fantasy, is instead a very real possibility for the 21st century,” said Dr Keiji Fukuda, WHO assistant director-general who coordinates its work on anti-microbial resistance.

“Without urgent, coordinated action, the world is headed for a post-antibiotic era in which common infections and minor injuries which have been treatable for decades can once again kill.

“Effective antibiotics have been one of the pillars allowing us to live longer, live healthier, and benefit from modern medicine.

“Unless we take significant actions to improve efforts to prevent infections and also change how we produce, prescribe and use antibiotics, the world will lose more and more of these global public health goods and the implications will be devastating.”

The report, “Antimicrobial Resistance: Global Report on Surveillance”, shows that resistance is occurring in many bacteria causing different infections.

It focuses on antibiotic resistance in seven bacteria responsible for common, serious diseases, such as bloodstream infections (sepsis), diarrhoea, pneumonia, urinary tract infections and gonorrhoea.

What is especially alarming is that the bacteria’s resistance has also breached “last resort” antibiotics, which are the most powerful medicines that doctors resort to when the usual ones do not work.

When patients do not respond to the usual medicines (known as first-line or first-generation medicines), doctors prescribe newer (second line medicines) which also usually also cost more.

When these also don’t work, newer and often more powerful (but sometimes with also more side effects) antibiotics are used, and they are even more expensive.

If these third-line or “last resort” medicines are not available or too costly for the patient, or if they don’t work on a patient because of antibiotic resistance, the patient remains ill or dies if the infection is a serious one.

New antibiotics have been discovered in the past to treat infections when the old ones became useless due to resistance.

But these discoveries dried up in the past 25 years.

The last completely new classes of anti-bacterial drugs were discovered in the 1980s.

Pathogens that are becoming increasingly resistant including to the more powerful antibiotics include E. coli, K. pneumonia, S. aureus, S. pneumonia, salmonelia, shigella and n. gonorrhoeae.

Key findings from the report include:

> Resistance to the treatment of last resort for life-threatening infections caused by a common intestinal bacteria, K. pneumonia — carbapenem antibiotics — has spread worldwide.

K. pneumoniae is a major cause of hospital-acquired infections such as pneumonia, bloodstream infections, infections in newborns and intensive-care unit patients.

In some countries, because of resistance, carbapenem antibiotics would not work in more than half of people treated for K. pneumoniae infections;

> Resistance to one of the most widely used antibacterial medicines for the treatment of urinary tract infections caused by E. coli – fluoroquinolones – is very widespread.

In the 1980s, when these drugs were first introduced, resistance was virtually zero.

In many countries today, this treatment is ineffective in more than half of patients;

> The sexually transmitted disease, gonorrhoea may soon be untreatable unless there are new drugs. Treatment failure to the last resort of treatment for gonorrhoea – third generation cephalosporins – has been confirmed in several countries; and

> Antibiotic resistance causes people to be sick for longer and increases the risk of death.

For example, people with MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) are estimated to be 64% more likely to die than people with a non-resistant form of the infection.

There are many cases of patients being infected by MRSA in hospitals.

The report also gives useful information on the worrisome building up of resistance in four serious diseases — tuberculosis, malaria, HIV and influenza.

A major factor accelerating resistance is in the animal husbandry sector, where there is a liberal use of antibiotics mainly to promote the growth of the animals used for food, for commercial purposes.

This builds up resistance in the bacteria present in the animals.

These resistant germs are passed on to humans who consume the meat.

The report has a small section on the animal-food chain, which has been identified as a major problem.

The European Union has banned the use of antibiotics as growth promoters in animals, but it is still allowed in other countries.

A WHO press release on the report calls for some actions. These include:

> Setting up basic systems in countries to track and monitor the problem;

> Preventing infections from happening in the first place to reduce the need for antibiotics;

> Only prescribing and dispensing antibiotics when they are truly needed, and prescribing and dispensing the right antibiotic(s) to treat the illness;

> Patients using antibiotics only when prescribed by a doctor and completing the full prescription; and

> Developing new diagnostics, antibiotics and other tools to stay ahead of emerging resistance.

Contributed by Global Trends by Martin Khor

Martin Khor is executive director of the South Centre, a research centre of 51 developing countries, based in Geneva. You can e-mail him at director@southcentre.org. The views expressed are entirely his own.

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