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Committee: World Health Organization Topic A: Measures to prevent health epidemics
Director: Cecilia Guadiana Mandujano Moderator: María José Reyes Morales
Committee Background: The World Health Organization is the directing and coordinating authority for health within the United Nations system. They have as a responsibility to provide leadership on global health matters, maintain health agenda, setting norms and standards, providing technical support to undeveloped countries as also monitoring and assessing health trends. WHO operates in an increasingly complex and rapidly changing landscape, as it responds using a six-point agenda.
The World Health Organization Constitution came into force on 7 April 1948 – a date we now celebrate every year as World Health Day, this organization was created for the only purpose of global health and also as an objective “is the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health”. The World Health Assembly is the supreme decision-making body for WHO. It meets each year on May in Geneva, Switzerland and is attended by delegations from all 193 Member States. The Executive Board is composed of 34 members basically qualified in the field of health. Members are elected for a three-year term. The main Board meeting, for the agreement and resolutions adopted forward for the Health Assembly, is held in January. WHO has as a purpose: “the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health”. Their goal is to combat diseases and promote general health worldwide. Health as a meaning for WHO is defined as being “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease of infirmity.
WHO as any other committee on the United Nations cannot force any country to become a part of it, but as a goal health promote is important for human being and can suggest and assure them to make intelligent decisions on health services.
Topic Background: Epidemics are mainly new cases of certain diseases, given in human population, and during a period of time they basically increase the unexpected, based on recent experience, also causing a large amount of deaths, which could have been avoided, there have been new epidemics worldwide all this caused by human gender, pollution, etc. The impoverishment of growing sectors of the world’s population, the increase of conflicts around the world and, especially, population movements occurred as a result of these, causing the increase of epidemics frequently, affecting those already who suffer deprivation, wars, diseases or had to flee their land, once the disease holds in your body the person may have a risk of a heart disease or other serious medical complications. Lack of appropriate water and sanitation systems can create favorable conditions for the spread of infectious diseases. Epidemics occur when the rate of a disease rises above the prevalence of a disease in a certain area.
Cholera: Is an acute intestinal infection caused by ingestion food or contaminated water with the bacterium Vibro cholerae. A critical component on health-work is epidemiology, which is the study of the incidence, distribution, and causes of health-related events in a given population. Cholera is one of the most rapidly fatal illnesses known, infected patients may die within three hours if medical treatment is not provided rapidly, in most of the cases cholera can be successfully treated with oral rehydration therapy prompt. The majority of reported infected cholera cases worldwide occur in Africa. It is calculated that the most cases of cholera are unreported due to poor surveillance systems, particularly in Africa. Fatality rates are 5% of total cases in Africa, and less than 1% in any country around the world.
Yellow Fever: Is an acute viral hemorrhagic fever transmitted by infected mosquitoes, causing mild symptoms to sever illness and may cause death. In mild cases the symptoms can be similar as influenza and may have a series of after effects, such as internal bleeding, kidney failure and meningitis. A classic feature of yellow fever is hepatitis, which is the reason for the yellow coloring of the skin. The World Health Organization estimates that yellow fever causes 200,000 illnesses and 30,000 deaths every year in unvaccinated populations, screening and vaccinating individuals for diseases, can prevent less epidemics on undeveloped and over populated countries, preventing many deaths and human gender suffer. Collecting and maintaining statistics about the incidence of diseases, births, deaths, and other vital events, guarding the food and water supplies through inspections, preventing cholera, and quality standards, and enacting laws by the government on each country and programs to preserve and get on human minds the importance of health worldwide. Yellow fever has been a very devastating epidemic in America, Africa and Europe. In addition, the cells of the immune system are affected and release large quantities of acute substances. These substances are the cause of the normal disease symptoms, such as muscular pain and fever, which are also observed in influenza.
New flu A H1N1: A virus that has never been circulated among humans. This virus is spread from person-to-person, it is transmitted as easily as the normal seasonal flu and can be passed to other people by exposure, touching to infected droplets expelled by coughing or sneezing that can be inhaled. In June 2009, The World Health Organization declared that flu due to a new strain of swine-origin H1N1 was responsible for the 2009 flu pandemic worldwide. It has been designed for use by governments and public health institutions as part of the efforts to identify and control outbreaks of pandemic A/H1N1 Influenza.
Avian Influenza: Refers to "influenza caused by viruses found on chiefly birds. In fact that refers to an illness caused by any of many different strains of influenza viruses that have been adapted to a specific host. In domestic poultry, infection with avian influenza viruses causes two main forms of disease, distinguished by low and high extremes of virulence. The so-called “low pathogenic” form commonly causes only mild symptoms and may easily go undetected. The highly pathogenic form is far more dramatic. It spreads very rapidly through poultry flocks, causes disease affecting multiple internal organs, and has a mortality that can approach 100%, often within 48 hours, if not attending to medical service rapidly, this may cause several damage.
Measures to prevent Health Epidemics: An effective response to influenza or any other epidemic will hinge on the availability of vaccine and antiviral. The degree of viral shedding in flu is directly proportional to the severity of symptoms and level of fever. Therefore; symptomatic individuals as compared with those who are asymptomatic shed virus to a greater degree. As a result, isolating the sick can be expected to reduce transmission and therefore slow the spread of disease. Influenza, which has a very short generation time, will spread very quickly as all of the epidemics have a very prompt movement, even if each infected individual does not spread it to many others. Hand washing has been shown to reduce transmission of respiratory illness such as any other sanitary measure. While it is reasonable to recommend that those who are in contact with the sick wash their hands, there is no evidence to support the notion that frequent routine hand washing during an epidemic will provide additional protection against transmission of the virus. Surgical masks, when worn by infected patients, reduce the dispersal of large respiratory droplets; however, there have been no studies of the use of masks for preventing transmission of flu. But it may prevent other people from inhaling coughs, which may be contaminated or other cause that may be damaged for people.
This is reasonable in the context of a disease with a low case fatality rate, widespread partial immunity, and widespread community transmission such as is the case in a normal flu season. In the setting of a highly lethal novel virus, however, such as might be the case in an H5N1 pandemic, airborne precautions that include the use of N95 masks, this would clearly be advisable, at least until the virus becomes ubiquitous. Also closing schools may help as epidemics are mainly spread on overpopulated places, as in schools people are really close to each other, that may cause the spread. But this might be needed only if the epidemic is extremely expanded.
History of the Problem: Since prehistoric times, epidemics have been a problem mostly because they didn’t have the media, communication, and medicines (doctors) that we all have right now as all of these have had an exponential growth in the past few years. In the twentieth century it was known that there were major epidemics that caused the death until the fourth or third of the population of the known world. Among those great epidemics tells the Black Death (fourteenth century), and cholera (early nineteenth century).
The influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 killed more people than the Great War, known today as World War I (WWI), at somewhere between 20 and 40 million people. It has been cited as the most devastating epidemic in recorded world history. Also in ancient times epidemics were caused by overpopulation, same thing that’s happening nowadays, all of us as human gender need to be clean enough and aware of everything that’s happening around us, so by this we could prevent epidemics among us, because illnesses are arriving every time, new for humans and that most of us cant handle it.
Countries:
South Africa: South Africa is in the grip of four different health epidemics at once, a new study has claimed. In the country cholera is a very common epidemic as, water is contaminated and food is not in proper conditions for Africans, which has caused several illnesses and health problems around South Africa. During 2000/2001 a cholera epidemic spread through the Eastern and North Eastern parts of South Africa, The first case confirmed in KwaZulu Natal on 14th August 2000 and is the most affected Province. Vibrio Cholerae El Tor Ogawa was isolated and by 5th April the epidemic had brought about 82,275 cases to cholera treatment centers and caused 171 deaths. The hot humid summer seaports, overcrowded communities, with low standard of environmental sanitation and scanty, restricted and unprotected water supplies in some areas facilitated introduction of cholera and other health epidemics in SA. After a year in 2001 the epidemic (cholera) was already Spreads in the 9 provinces, by this many people died, because of not getting medical attention rapidly.
United States: HIV/AIDS a very common epidemic around the country, it is the largest of all around USA, the CDC has always taken very seriously its responsibility to monitor the HIV/AIDS epidemic and to constantly improve the nation’s ability to describe the leading edge of the epidemic. Recent surveillance data indicate that, more than 25 years into the epidemic, HIV continues to exact a tremendous toll here in the United States. 38% of persons with HIV were diagnosed with AIDS within a year of learning that they have HIV. Across the country, more than 14,000 persons with AIDS died in 2006. Seventy-three percent (73%) of new HIV infections were among men. Sixty-four percent of infections among African Americans were in men, and of those, 62% were among MSM. Thirty-five percent of infections among African Americans were in women. Eighty-three percent of those infections occurred through high-risk heterosexual contact. For example, 25% of people living with HIV/AIDS in the U.S. are unaware of their infection. These persons are believed to unknowingly account for more than half of new HIV infections in the United States.
United Kingdom: 2004-2005, the United Kingdom experienced a nationwide epidemic of mumps, which peaked during 2005. This new epidemic is basically, a viral disease of the human species, by the mumps virus. Prior to the development of vaccination and the introduction of a vaccine, it was a common childhood disease worldwide, and is still a significant threat to health in the third world. Notified cases were reported in England and Wales, majority cases in persons between 15-24 years and with a total percentage of 79.1%. 56.8% were determined to be positive to mumps. The vaccine is introduced into the routine immunization schedule for children.
France: France's worst heat wave on record has killed an estimated 3,000 people across the nation, the Health Ministry said, as the government faced accusations that it failed to respond to a major health crisis around the country. Deaths accelerated, with up to 180 people dying in one day in Paris.
Russia: HIV/AIDS has been located as an epidemic the last few months, by the end of June; more than 4,000 cases had been registered in Moscow alone. Poverty, prostitution, drug abuse and ignorance are the classic symptoms cited by the Russian Health Ministry's Aids department for the steep increase in the incidence of the HIV virus in Russia. Many of those infected are women, who are driven to the big cities, especially Moscow, by severe poverty in the provinces. They see prostitution as a way of making money, but often get dragged into drug abuse, too. There are now nearly 16,000 reported cases of HIV infection in Russia, and 70% of them are in Moscow.
China: The health of China's population is therefore increasingly linked to that of other populations in Asia and beyond. China's health system does not reflect the economic benefits of globalization. China's response to SARS over the past three months has mirrored the country's reaction to HIV/AIDS over the past three years. In both cases, the initial response was denial. Health authorities are also constrained by a legal system designed to conceal disasters from the outside world. Hepatitis B and C infect upwards of 200 million Chinese. Syphilis and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in China present a serious health problem. HIV/AIDS is estimated to infect anywhere between 1 million and 2 million Chinese and could potentially infect 15 million Chinese by 2010 if no effective measures are taken. In China, 550 million people are infected with the tubercle bacillus, with 4.5 million developing active TB and between 120,000 to 250,000 dying per year. Almost 80% percent of the population suffers of TB.
Mexico: Mexico is suffering, nowadays of Influenza A H1/N1, Pregnant women, health workers and people with risky health conditions will be the first to receive swine flu vaccinations, according to an agreement. The treatment appears to be working, and Mexico, winning applause from global health experts for a swift, coordinated, transparent response that probably saved lives here and abroad. The virus would have killed 8,605 people and put more than 30,000 people in the hospital. The epidemic cost Mexico $2.3 billion, as consumer spending plunged and foreign tourists disappeared. Mexico was more prepared than many countries might have been to handle such an outbreak. It had a national early warning system in place to look for unusual clusters of infectious disease. It had a stockpile of a million doses of flu treatment ready for an emergency.
Indonesia: The 7th Cholera Pandemic, which began in 1961 in Celebes, Indonesia, spread to Bangladesh in 1963 and the following year reached India. Indonesia confronts malaria epidemics in poor rural areas. The 1997 economic crisis in Indonesia brought increased poverty, a reduction in health spending, and the re-emergence of malaria in areas where the disease was previously under control. Nearly half of the Indonesian population – more than 90 million people – lives in malaria endemic areas. In addition to the human suffering, illness from malaria takes a significant toll on the Indonesian economy.
Conclusion: After considering all these facts, it’s clear we need to act, there is nothing healthy in a population who has health epidemics. The need of a promotion and prevention on health epidemics diseases will surely not only help but will make an extraordinary difference. As we said before there are many facts that influence and affect a human’s health; New and more practical solutions must be introduced, since it has already been proven that solutions already introduced haven’t been entirely practical. Although epidemics as we mentioned it before it causes the deaths of many people around the world, which means each country needs to act quickly, also we as people need to be clean, hygienic because pollution, global warming is affecting the increase of health epidemics.
Questions for the delegate:
-What are the main health epidemics, your country faces? -What is your country doing, to prevent health epidemics? -In what ways does other countries influence in your country? -What are the rates of your health epidemics? -Does your country have any institution or organization for health epidemics? -What percentage of your population suffers health epidemics? -How do global warming influences on health epidemics?
Bibliography:
http://www.answers.com/topic/epidemics-and-public-health http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/travel/diseases/yellowfever.htm http://www.upmc-biosecurity.org/website/special_topics/global_disease_surveillance/ http://www.who.int/features/qa/43/en/index.html http://www.thebody.com/content/art12238.html http://www.kznhealth.gov.za/cholerareview.pdf
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