SWITZERLAND: WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION URGE GOVERNMENTS TO STRENGTHEN DEFENCES AGAINST BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS.
Record ID:
643527
SWITZERLAND: WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION URGE GOVERNMENTS TO STRENGTHEN DEFENCES AGAINST BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS.
- Title: SWITZERLAND: WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION URGE GOVERNMENTS TO STRENGTHEN DEFENCES AGAINST BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS.
- Date: 26th September 2001
- Summary: (U5) GENEVA, SWITZERLAND (SEPTEMBER 25, 2001) (REUTERS -ACCESS ALL) 1. PAN EXTERIOR WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION (WHO) HEADQUARTERS/ WHO SIGN 2. WHO EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FOR COMMUNICABLE DISEASES DAVID HEYMANN SPEAKING TO JOURNALIST 3. (SOUNDBITE) (English) WHO EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FOR COMMUNICABLE DISEASES DAVID HEYMANN, SAYING: "We believe the world is well prepared to detect such an event, not to prevent the event but to detect the event. The past four years we have been strengthening the global surveillance and response to such infectious diseases as a regular part of our activities. We have a network of over 72 different networks of laboratories, networks of public health specialists who are working with us whenever a disease occurs to report that disease and help us mount the response that is necessary to stop it." 4. HEYMANN SPEAKING TO JOURNALIST 5. (SOUNDBITE) (English) HEYMANN, SAYING: "In the past 72 hours we have had many calls from ministers of health throughout the world requesting guidance on how they should be prepared if there should be deliberate use of an infectious agent or a chemical and so these guidelines that have been developed over the past two years or updated over the past two years are almost ready for release, they needed final editing, and we decided that rather than wait for that we would put them out now at the request of our ministries of health." 6. (SOUNDBITE) (English) HEYMANN, SAYING: "The principal steps are all based around strong public health systems within countries and contingency plans to deal with infectious diseases. Each disease that we feel might be used intentionally has its own protocol and those protocols are useful to ministries of health as they do their planning." 7. (SOUNDBITE) (English) HEYMANN, SAYING: "The principle element is rapid detection and rapid response, yes." 8. (SOUNDBITE) (English) HEYMANN, SAYING: "The specialists in biological weapons tell us that the most important agents would be agents like anthrax or smallpox or diseases which are caused by toxins such as botulism or fevers that cause haemorrhage like ebola." 10. (SOUNDBITE) (English) HEYMANN, SAYING "The world is very vulnerable to these activities because there is rapid intercontinental travel and some of these diseases might have an incubation period, the period between infection and disease of up to one or two weeks. So if people were infected somewhere they could travel very widely and many, many different people to many different continents while they are still in the period of incubation of this disease." 11. (SOUNDBITE) (English) HEYMANN, SAYING: "An infectious disease in one country is a problem for all in todays world of globalisation." 12. HEYMANN SPEAKING TO JOURNALIST Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 11th October 2001 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
- Country: Switzerland
- Reuters ID: LVACK5PQ4OWLX6YN56ING99YALRF
- Story Text: The World Health Organisation (WHO) has urged all
countries to strengthen defences against biological weapons
after the suicide hijackings that killed thousands of people
in the United States.
The United Nations body was preparing a report on
responses to the threat posed by biological and chemical
weapons for the end of the year but it has rushed out a
preliminary version because of public alarm triggered by the
September 11 attacks on New York and near Washington.
The United States has grounded all crop-spraying planes
out of fear they could be used by guerrilla groups -- similar
to those which crashed planes into the World Trade Center and
the Pentagon -- for attacks with chemical or biological
weapons.
The WHO, which has posted part of the report on its
website, noted that there had so far been few examples of any
country resorting to the use of biological weapons, perhaps
because of the difficulties involved in handling such arms.
Even so, the magnitude of possible impacts on civilian
populations of their use or threatened use obliges governments
both to seek prevention and prepare response plans, it said.
The report spells out possible agents for the transmission
of diseases -- ranging from anthrax, haemorrhagic viruses and
other pathogens to biological toxins and noxious chemicals.
WHO Executive director for communicable diseases David
Heymann said on Tuesday (September 25) that the list had been
drawn up on the basis of studies made by biological weapons
experts of the most likely agents and diseases to be used.
Heymann said that steps needed to prevent biological
weapon use were outside the remit of the WHO which had
concentrated on how best to detect them and how to react.
He said the body had been inundated with requests for
information by health ministries around the world following
the attacks in the United States.
The answer was to bolster health services and ensure that
there was a network through which information could be quickly
transmitted from doctors to laboratories.
Internationally, the WHO was helping the flow of
information through a global network which enabled news of an
infectious outbreak in one country -- such as the lethal ebola
virus -- to be quickly sent to other health authorities, he
said.
"The specialists in biological weapons tell us that the
most important agents would be agents like anthrax or smallpox
or diseases that are caused by toxins such as botulism or
fevers that cause haemorrhage such as ebola," added Heymann.
While the United States and other countries were focusing
on the dangers of a biological attack directly within their
frontiers, Heymann warned that deadly viruses could be
released anywhere with the intention that they should spread.
Providing there were good communication links with the
targeted country, viruses with several days' incubation period
could be released in a state thousands of miles away.
In a world of globalisation, it would not necessarily have
to be in the targeted country. If a disease with two weeks
incubation period were used, it would hit wherever the carrier
stopped off, he said.
"An infection disease in one country is a problem for all in
today's world of globalisation," added Heymann.
db/ZD
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