
World Health Organization
As quickly as swine flu is popping up around the globe, “news” about swine flu is being consumed at an even faster pace. If you ever played Whisper Down the Lane, you know that information often changes as it passes from person to person. With the advent of social networks such as Twitter, basic facts can morph into panicky fiction as quickly as a text message is transmitted.
It is at times like these that we need to carefully search out credible sources of information. Let’s take a moment to look at two authoritative sources of international health news and the arbiters of the term “pandemic”: the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
In an effort to provide meaningful and consistent characterization of flu outbreaks, both the WHO and the CDC have formulated rating systems. The WHO rates the severity of an outbreak of a new contagion using a six-phase system ranging from no-risk (Level 1) to pandemic (Level 6):
1. No animal virus has caused human infection
2. An animal influenza virus has caused at least one human to become ill
3. An animal influenza virus has caused sporadic cases or small clusters of people to become ill, but there is no sustained human to human transmission (current level of avian or “bird’ flu worldwide)
4. Verified human-to-human transmission of enough volume to cause community level outbreaks (such as the swine flu outbreak at the school in Queens, New York)
5. Human-to-human spread into at least two countries in close proximity without a known host travelling from one country to another (Tourists who return home from Mexico and become ill do not meet this test)
6. Community level outbreaks on at least two continents (Pandemic)
Don’t even try to “tweet” this important information on Twitter.
Once a pandemic has been declared by the WHO, the CDC uses a “Pandemic Severity Index” to rate flu outbreaks based on the number of anticipated deaths. Category 1 outbreaks have an expected death toll limited to less than 90,000, while category 5 puts the number at almost 2 million. The CDC developed this system in response to the Avian Flu threat in 2007 in order to standardize the level response taken by public health agencies around the U.S. and the world.
Word is just in that the WHO has raised its pandemic alert to Level 5. Let’s keep the WHO criteria firmly in mind as the contagion spreads. There are 36,000 deaths in the U.S. each year from flu complications, and we have a long way to go to reach Category 2.
The CDC has recommended Tamiflu® and Relenza® for
After 24 surreal hours on the ground in Mexico, I’m on my way back out of the country. I had arrived in Monterrey yesterday for a conference of Mexican Hospitals, but the conference has been canceled due to the swine flu outbreak.
Not since the panic of 1976,
Travelers to the so called “meningitis belt” MUST be immunized. Fortunately, the two commercial vaccines available in the United States (MPSV4 or Menomune and MCV4 or MenactraT) provide protection against the most common types of infection. Students who are immunized against meningitis in preparation for dormitory living in the U.S. typically receive these vaccines, but they should check with their physician to make sure they are protected. Those traveling through or living in the meningitis belt should adopt strategies for avoiding the illness such as staying away from large gatherings, refraining from sharing drinking and eating utensils, and seeking medical attention at the first sign of a headache, fever, stiff neck, or purplish rash.
China is dealing with healthcare challenges that come with the reality of having a billion citizens. It will be fascinating to watch as China continues to move beyond the history of peasant farmers playing the role of Barefoot Doctor to try to provide healthcare to the hundreds of millions of Chinese living in its ginormous rural territory.
Part of our focus on healthy travel is to build an appreciation for the doctors and hospitals around the world that make special efforts to treat sick and injured travelers. Well, it turns out that many of these healthcare providers also go out of their way to care for some of the neediest people on the planet. We opened a window on this activity when we introduced some of the doctors and hospitals that work most closely with us to an organization called
College years bring opportunities to explore the world. Young adults are adept at traveling light, but today many carry the weight of living with a mental health condition. They may be traveling with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) or a more serious condition, or, as often happens, a new condition might emerge when an adolescent leaves home for the first time (for reasons Vikram Tarugu cites in
We’ve tackled some serious issues so far here on HealthyTravelBlog, and we’ll continue to talk about that. But, today, in honor of April Fools’ Day, we wanted to point out that sometimes, travel is just 