Tuesday, December 29, 2009

WHO Director Chan begins instilling fear of bird flu/ BBC

From the BBC:

Dr Margaret Chan
Dr Margaret Chan says avian flu is more of a problem than swine flu

The head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned the global swine flu pandemic is not yet over and the virus could still mutate....

However she admitted she had not yet had a vaccine but said she would have it soon.

She said that although countries are now better prepared to cope with a global disease outbreak, people still had to be aware of the dangers of bird flu (H5N1).

She said this was more toxic and deadly than swine flu and that many countries remained ill-prepared for mass outbreaks of this virus.

"The world is not ready for a pandemic to be caused by H5N1," she said.

You read it here first on October 25: bird flu vaccinations may be next.

And old bird flu vaccine trial data were substituted to license European swine flu vaccines (a neat way to distribute swine flu vaccine before there is any data on it).

Might the 97 partnerships and collaborative arrangements with WHO, which supply about 80% of WHO's budget, or simply channeling money have influenced the way WHO weakened the criteria for a pandemic last spring, and/or influenced WHO's support for billions of doses of unnecessary vaccine for swine flu?

No comments: