Panic and Complacency, Not a Choice but a Cycle

Message Topic Search Topic Options Post Reply Create New Topic Printable Version Translate Topic

   FluMum and I have been having a great conversation about people's refusal to consider the need to prep which I am enjoying greatly.

Then I noticed this article, which makes our point very well:

Panic and complacency: how the world reacts to disease outbreaks
By Anne Gulland,

Global health security correspondent

15 May 2018 • 12:48pm

Panic and
 complacency are the hallmarks of the world’s response to infectious 
diseases, with complacency currently in the ascendance.
This is the verdict of Jonathan Quick, chair of the US-based Global 
Health Council and previously a director at the World Health 
Organization.
Dr Quick's recently published book, the End of Epidemics,
 details how the world can prevent another outbreak sweeping the globe, 
harming millions and crippling health services and economies. But he is 
not confident that the world is ready to meet the threat.
He told the Telegraph: “There is a cycle of panic and complacency. We’re currently sliding back into complacency.”
Earlier this year, the WHO published an annual report detailing the infectious diseases most likely to trigger a worldwide health emergency.
Among the diseases whose deadly potential we already know about – such as Ebola and Lassa fever
 – WHO also listed Disease X. The usually sober health agency warned 
that somewhere out there lurks a disease we have absolutely no idea 
about. Most likely it is hiding in an animal and is biding its time 
before it makes the jump to humans.

In the early 1980s AIDS
 was the Disease X of its time. Ebola, which swept through West Africa 
in 2014 killing 11,000 people, was Disease X when it first emerged in 
the 1970s. And more recently severe acute respiratory syndrome – better known as SARS – was the Disease X of the early 2000s.

Dr Quick 
details the arrival of SARS in his book. The outbreak began in rural 
China but was then brought to the the Metropole Hotel in Hong Kong by a 
doctor who had been treating patients with the disease in rural 
Guangdong.
Hong Kong, a global city which plays host to hundreds and thousands 
of travellers from around the world every year, was the perfect 
launchpad for the spread of the disease. The doctor later died from this
 new illness, by which time he had infected around a dozen others within
 the hotel. 
“Within a matter of weeks the disease had spread to 27 countries, 
closing cities like Toronto and costing them a billion dollars,” he 
says.
He describes WHO’s stance in naming Disease X as wise in terms of 
communicating risk. However, it has also left the global community 
scratching its heads: no one knows where Disease X is going to come from
 nor where it will break out, he warns.
And a report
 from the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in the United States 
warns that scientists are looking for the disease in the wrong places: 
concentrating on previous outbreaks rather than trying to adapt to new 
threats.
Time and again, a disease breaks out and the world panics, says Dr 
Quick. For example, in India in the 1990s there was an outbreak of 
plague - the WHO realised that there was no worldwide mechanism for 
containing a disease outbreak it set up the international health 
regulations. This lays out the steps countries must take to ensure that 
diseases do not spread out of control. 

After the
 SARS panic of the early 2000s the regulations were strengthened but by 
the time Ebola swept through Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone in 2014 it
 became clear that very few countries in Africa complied with them, says
 Dr Quick. 

And that complacency is evident in a report by the World Bank last year which showed that the majority of countries are still ill prepared to deal with pandemics. 
The report warned that many countries "chronically under-invest" in 
critical public health functions such as disease surveillance, 
diagnostics, and emergency operations centres, which enable the early 
identification and containment of outbreaks.
So far, just 37 countries have completed the peer-reviewed 
assessments, called the Joint External Evaluation (JEE), of their 
ability to identify their gaps and needs. This means that 167 countries 
have not completed the evaluations. 
Dr Quick says the foundation of pandemic preparedness is "strong 
local and national public health systems" and front line health workers 
who can recognise an unusual pattern of disease. He describes front line
 health workers as the "canary in the global health coal mine". 
"Before the 2014 Ebola outbreak there had been 22 previous outbreaks 
of the disease. All of those were put to bed quickly because they took 
place in countries which could recognise them and quickly respond," he 
says. 

"What happened in West Africa was that these countries weren't aware 
that the disease was there so it caught them by surprise. It had several
 months to get going and then quickly blow up. It was a bit like a 
forest fire which burns quietly and then all of a sudden the whole 
forest is ablaze," he says. 

He says the JEE is beginning to make an impact - but it is slow.
Richard Hatchett, chief executive of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI),
 a new partnership set up to fast track the development of vaccines for 
global epidemics, says that awareness of the threat of pandemics has 
improved.
But he adds: "But in terms of responding to new pathogens with 
characteristics that make them epidemic diseases we still face immense 
challenges."
He says that the experience of SARS and more recently Zika
 has shown that the world is still unprepared. Zika spread through South
 America in 2016 and led to an increase in the number of babies in 
Brazil born with defects, after their mothers became infected with the 
virus in pregnancy. 

"Zika was an interesting test case. Because no one had prioritised it
 as a disease of concern there was very little research done on it," he 
says. 
The research community scrambled 
to react to the virus. "The aspiration was to have a vaccine ready for 
emergency use by mid 2018. That is not for global distribution but for 
emergency use. Our capability to rapidly develop vaccines and 
manufacture them at scale is not there yet," he admits.

CEPI's 
aspiration is to create vaccine platforms which can be used to treat a 
range of diseases. Zika is a flavovirus so vaccines for other 
flavoviruses could be adapted. 
Sudan virus and Marburg haemorrhagic virus is a philovirus like 
Ebola. The new VSV vaccine which will be deployed in the current Ebola 
outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo could be a launchpad for 
the development of vaccines for these two other diseases. 

Dr 
Hatchett worked in African communities affected by Ebola, in a New York 
City emergency room during the anthrax attacks, in emergency operations 
centers working with colleagues around the world during SARS, at the 
White House during the swine flu pandemic in 2009, and in the responses 
to many infectious disease epidemic since. So he knows about panic.
But he thinks what will really convince people is the economic cost. In 2015, a patient returning from the Middle East brought Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) to South Korea.
"He was treated in three different emergency rooms before his disease
 was correctly identified. The outbreak led to only 186 cases but the 
wider impact was huge. Twenty-four hospitals closed and so did 2,000 
schools. It caused $10bn worth of damage to the South Korean economy. 
When we frame the threat in that way people understand how pandemics can
 have huge economic implications," he says. 

But while
 this talk of pandemics is sexy, Nick Herbert MP, co-chair of the all 
party parliamentary group on tuberculosis (TB), says there are other 
outbreaks which need the world's attention. He says that the economic 
impact of TB is expected to be $1 trillion over the next 15 years. 
"If we could mobilise the same response for TB that was ultimately 
mobilised for Ebola, including huge investments in R&D, we could 
make incredible progress very quickly.  
"I would like to see more effort from all governments to align 
pandemic preparedness efforts with the ongoing campaigns to beat the 
biggest infectious killers.  If you have an infectious, extensively 
drug-resistant disease like TB, what better way to prepare for an 
outbreak of a new disease with similar characteristics than to tackle 
the disease in front of you? " he says. 
"Everything that we will need to do for a future outbreak of Disease X we need to do today for TB," he says. 
Source, photos, a timeline of disease in this century and relevant links:   https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/panic-complacency-world-reacts-disease-outbreaks/

Reading between the lines, complcency is the natural state of us humans.  All you preppers are just weird! - OK, so I am just as weird.  Anyway, weird is good, normal is pretty stupid!

Author	Message Topic Search Topic Options Post Reply Create New Topic Printable Version Translate Topic
Technophobe Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Assistant Admin Joined: January 16 2014 Location: Scotland Status: Offline Points: 88450	Post Options Post Reply Quote Technophobe Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Topic: Panic and Complacency, Not a Choice but a Cycle Posted: May 15 2018 at 9:15am
	FluMum and I have been having a great conversation about people's refusal to consider the need to prep which I am enjoying greatly. Then I noticed this article, which makes our point very well: Panic and complacency: how the world reacts to disease outbreaks By Anne Gulland, Global health security correspondent 15 May 2018 • 12:48pm Panic and complacency are the hallmarks of the world’s response to infectious diseases, with complacency currently in the ascendance. This is the verdict of Jonathan Quick, chair of the US-based Global Health Council and previously a director at the World Health Organization. Dr Quick's recently published book, the End of Epidemics, details how the world can prevent another outbreak sweeping the globe, harming millions and crippling health services and economies. But he is not confident that the world is ready to meet the threat. He told the Telegraph: “There is a cycle of panic and complacency. We’re currently sliding back into complacency.” Earlier this year, the WHO published an annual report detailing the infectious diseases most likely to trigger a worldwide health emergency. Among the diseases whose deadly potential we already know about – such as Ebola and Lassa fever – WHO also listed Disease X. The usually sober health agency warned that somewhere out there lurks a disease we have absolutely no idea about. Most likely it is hiding in an animal and is biding its time before it makes the jump to humans. In the early 1980s AIDS was the Disease X of its time. Ebola, which swept through West Africa in 2014 killing 11,000 people, was Disease X when it first emerged in the 1970s. And more recently severe acute respiratory syndrome – better known as SARS – was the Disease X of the early 2000s. Dr Quick details the arrival of SARS in his book. The outbreak began in rural China but was then brought to the the Metropole Hotel in Hong Kong by a doctor who had been treating patients with the disease in rural Guangdong. Hong Kong, a global city which plays host to hundreds and thousands of travellers from around the world every year, was the perfect launchpad for the spread of the disease. The doctor later died from this new illness, by which time he had infected around a dozen others within the hotel. “Within a matter of weeks the disease had spread to 27 countries, closing cities like Toronto and costing them a billion dollars,” he says. He describes WHO’s stance in naming Disease X as wise in terms of communicating risk. However, it has also left the global community scratching its heads: no one knows where Disease X is going to come from nor where it will break out, he warns. And a report from the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in the United States warns that scientists are looking for the disease in the wrong places: concentrating on previous outbreaks rather than trying to adapt to new threats. Time and again, a disease breaks out and the world panics, says Dr Quick. For example, in India in the 1990s there was an outbreak of plague - the WHO realised that there was no worldwide mechanism for containing a disease outbreak it set up the international health regulations. This lays out the steps countries must take to ensure that diseases do not spread out of control. After the SARS panic of the early 2000s the regulations were strengthened but by the time Ebola swept through Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone in 2014 it became clear that very few countries in Africa complied with them, says Dr Quick. And that complacency is evident in a report by the World Bank last year which showed that the majority of countries are still ill prepared to deal with pandemics. The report warned that many countries "chronically under-invest" in critical public health functions such as disease surveillance, diagnostics, and emergency operations centres, which enable the early identification and containment of outbreaks. So far, just 37 countries have completed the peer-reviewed assessments, called the Joint External Evaluation (JEE), of their ability to identify their gaps and needs. This means that 167 countries have not completed the evaluations. Dr Quick says the foundation of pandemic preparedness is "strong local and national public health systems" and front line health workers who can recognise an unusual pattern of disease. He describes front line health workers as the "canary in the global health coal mine". "Before the 2014 Ebola outbreak there had been 22 previous outbreaks of the disease. All of those were put to bed quickly because they took place in countries which could recognise them and quickly respond," he says. "What happened in West Africa was that these countries weren't aware that the disease was there so it caught them by surprise. It had several months to get going and then quickly blow up. It was a bit like a forest fire which burns quietly and then all of a sudden the whole forest is ablaze," he says. He says the JEE is beginning to make an impact - but it is slow. Richard Hatchett, chief executive of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), a new partnership set up to fast track the development of vaccines for global epidemics, says that awareness of the threat of pandemics has improved. But he adds: "But in terms of responding to new pathogens with characteristics that make them epidemic diseases we still face immense challenges." He says that the experience of SARS and more recently Zika has shown that the world is still unprepared. Zika spread through South America in 2016 and led to an increase in the number of babies in Brazil born with defects, after their mothers became infected with the virus in pregnancy. "Zika was an interesting test case. Because no one had prioritised it as a disease of concern there was very little research done on it," he says. The research community scrambled to react to the virus. "The aspiration was to have a vaccine ready for emergency use by mid 2018. That is not for global distribution but for emergency use. Our capability to rapidly develop vaccines and manufacture them at scale is not there yet," he admits. CEPI's aspiration is to create vaccine platforms which can be used to treat a range of diseases. Zika is a flavovirus so vaccines for other flavoviruses could be adapted. Sudan virus and Marburg haemorrhagic virus is a philovirus like Ebola. The new VSV vaccine which will be deployed in the current Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo could be a launchpad for the development of vaccines for these two other diseases. Dr Hatchett worked in African communities affected by Ebola, in a New York City emergency room during the anthrax attacks, in emergency operations centers working with colleagues around the world during SARS, at the White House during the swine flu pandemic in 2009, and in the responses to many infectious disease epidemic since. So he knows about panic. But he thinks what will really convince people is the economic cost. In 2015, a patient returning from the Middle East brought Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) to South Korea. "He was treated in three different emergency rooms before his disease was correctly identified. The outbreak led to only 186 cases but the wider impact was huge. Twenty-four hospitals closed and so did 2,000 schools. It caused $10bn worth of damage to the South Korean economy. When we frame the threat in that way people understand how pandemics can have huge economic implications," he says. But while this talk of pandemics is sexy, Nick Herbert MP, co-chair of the all party parliamentary group on tuberculosis (TB), says there are other outbreaks which need the world's attention. He says that the economic impact of TB is expected to be $1 trillion over the next 15 years. "If we could mobilise the same response for TB that was ultimately mobilised for Ebola, including huge investments in R&D, we could make incredible progress very quickly. "I would like to see more effort from all governments to align pandemic preparedness efforts with the ongoing campaigns to beat the biggest infectious killers. If you have an infectious, extensively drug-resistant disease like TB, what better way to prepare for an outbreak of a new disease with similar characteristics than to tackle the disease in front of you? " he says. "Everything that we will need to do for a future outbreak of Disease X we need to do today for TB," he says. Source, photos, a timeline of disease in this century and relevant links: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/panic-complacency-world-reacts-disease-outbreaks/ Reading between the lines, complcency is the natural state of us humans. All you preppers are just weird! - OK, so I am just as weird. Anyway, weird is good, normal is pretty stupid!
	How do you tell if a politician is lying? His lips or pen are moving.