WHO staff prepare boxes of antiviral drugs to treat the H1N1 virus

WHO staff prepare boxes of antiviral drugs to treat the H1N1

The moderate impact of the H1N1 pandemic is the “best possible health news of the decade,” but the head of the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) today warned that more people – particularly in the southern hemisphere – could become sick this season and that it would be premature to say the health risk is over.“It is too early for us to say that we have come to an end of the pandemic influenza worldwide,” WHO Director-General Margaret Chan told reporters at a year-end press conference in Geneva.“There is no basis for any allegations that this is not a pandemic. We are seeing million and millions of people infected with this new virus and we are fortunate that many of these people make recovery.”

Ms. Chan added that it would be prudent for WHO and member states to continue to monitor the pandemic evolution for up to 12 more months.According to the agency, more than 6,000 people have died from the H1N1 since the outbreak began in April, compared with up to 500,000 who die annually from the regular flu. Pregnant women, children under two and people with underlying conditions such as respiratory problems are particularly vulnerable.

The WHO head said that in a background of a fragile economy where many people suffer from chronic diseases, a severe instead of a moderate pandemic could have brought momentum for health development “to a grinding halt and reversed the hard-earned against that the world collectively has achieved in the last ten years.”

She added that Member States and WHO partners have made steady but fragile progress in internationally-agreed goals in the past decade, and must work hard to maintain the momentum of progress and to catch up in areas that are lacking.

Among the priorities for the next year, Ms. Chan called on countries to continue to push for progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), eight ambitious anti-poverty targets with a 2015 deadline, especially in improving maternal mortality.

She noted possible roadblocks caused by weak and insufficiently-funded health care systems. She also cautioned against threats from policies outside the direct control of the health sector, such as from the financial or the agricultural sectors.

On a positive note, she highlighted the new breed of South-South and North-South collaborations on research and development that have yielded “badly needed vaccines and drugs, particularly for diseases of the poor.”

Mobile apps help people track H1N1, prevent flu

Rumors of a disease outbreak a century ago probably would have left the general populace feeling frightened, wondering whether their town would be the next to be hit.Now the well but worried can download a flu-tracking application and find out where in their state an H1N1 outbreak has occurred and learn the best ways to avoid it. They also can learn when vaccines will be available nearby and get news on how some of the afflicted are doing.

Outbreaks Near Me, a new, free application developed by non-profit HealthMap, is among a slew of flu-themed applications available on the iTunes App Store for iPhone and iPod Touch owners.A couple of dozen other flu-related apps have been created recently, including HMSMobile Swine Flu Center, by Harvard Medical School, which offers medical advice with animations. Others include flu games and jokes such as Swine Scan, which supposedly scans your body to detect infection.Outbreaks Near Me works like a GPS. It finds your location and tells you where H1N1 and other infectious outbreaks are occurring nearby with a display of pushpins on a map. Click on a pushpin and you can read news reports as well as personal accounts submitted by users. It also lets you set up an alert system, so if H1N1 arrives in your area, you’ll get a heads-up.

“Our app is all about giving people real-time alerts. We didn’t develop this to increase fear. It’s about helping people arm themselves,” says John Brownstein, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Children’s Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School, who developed the app with colleagues at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab.H1N1, popularly known as swine flu, has infected an estimated 22 million Americans this year from April to October, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC has reported that the outbreak is linked to almost 4,000 deaths, including 540 children.

Since Outbreaks Near Me launched Sept. 1, about 100,000 people have downloaded it, Brownstein says. Though the app also reports recent E. coli, malaria and other outbreaks, H1N1 has by far been the most-searched disease, he says.Brownstein says the app has received more than 2,000 submissions. “People take photos of themselves in bed sick, or e-mail in to say their school is closed, or that there’s a vaccine shortage in their area,” he says.Outbreaks Near Me co-developer Clark Freifeld, a graduate student in media art and sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says developers are analyzing submissions now and say the information appears to correlate with CDC data. It suggests the iPhone may be a sensitive tool for monitoring early outbreak trends, Freifeld says.

For big-picture influenza news, most people probably get information the traditional way, from CDC reports, says influenza expert William Schaffner, chair of the department of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville. Apps may be best when you want more focused information, he says. “Like what is happening in grandma’s town, where you’re going for Thanksgiving.”The CDC does not comment on products such as apps, spokeswoman Karen Hunter says. Hunter says the agency is in the prototype stage of several new flu apps for iPhone and the Google Android, and they’re already using mobile text messaging (to sign up, text HEALTH to 87000) and a mobile website (http://m.cdc.gov) to distribute flu updates to tens of thousands of subscribers.