Too Close
For Prevention?

Is Poland's Health Service Paying Attention To Effective Bird Flu Prevention For The Polish People?

Warsaw, Poland - 2, January 2008 Poland's health care system is in a state of crisis with a critical shortage of doctors and new European Union rules limiting their hours of work. Is the Polish Government diverted from looking to future and providing effective bird flu and other disease prevention services while it tries to keep basic services on line? Will it be able to prevent bird flu, or any other disease from spreading or will it react after it might be too late.

A reader submitted this comment on the topic of prevention which we offer you today for your thoughts and comments.

Human-to-Human Transmitted Avian Flu – We have to move from a Cure Strategy to a Prevention Strategy before it is too late
The strategy to prevent hundreds of millions of people dying (possibly over a billion) across the globe from the Avian Flu pandemic is totally flawed. This reliance that governments around the world have placed on predominantly vaccination (cure) only is a decision that history will record as one of the most insane and insidious decisions that has ever been taken by our political leaders. This assertion is based upon the facts that the eventual human-to-human killer virus that will emerge will be a new strain due to the fact that viruses constantly mutate and that owing to the initial incubation period for bird flu to show its ugly face, the virus will have spread like wildfire across the world through millions travelling internationally on a daily basis. Indeed, the avian flu strain is 20 times more virulent than the 1917/18 Spanish flu that killed between 50 million and 100 million people, but where this time, literally hundreds of millions will perish with this ill thought out strategy by our political leaders and governments. What should have been undertaken is that this highly contagious disease should have been addressed at its source (prevention) and where history again will confirm this eventual conclusion. Unfortunately by then, this terrible event will have taken place. Governments should rethink therefore before it is too late and adopt predominantly a ‘field’ strategy, for this is the only strategy that will work and stop the unimaginable happening. Governments have been warned continuously, but where they do not wish to listen due to the powerful overtones delivered to our political leaders by the giant pharmaceuticals in their quest for profits (or selfish greed dependant on which point-of-view one wishes to take). One has to remember also that since 2003 the human mortality rate through the bird flu virus has been 62% and where only 38 people on average out of every hundred has survived. Overall therefore it has to be said that these vast profit-orientated pharmaceutical companies have not stopped any of these deaths through their highly expensive drugs and where things will be no different when the eventual pandemic arrives. It is hoped therefore that for the sake of humankind, that a major sea change takes place within the thinking of our political leaders in 2008, from one of cure to prevention, and before time literally runs out on us all. Indeed, in 2007, CNN.Com determined that 87% of voters considered that health agencies would NOT be able to respond effectively if there was an avian flu pandemic. These are therefore not fear factors but factors derived from pure logic and facts determined by some of the leading authoritive thinkers on the subject.

Dr David Hill
World Innovation Foundation
Bern, Switzerland

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