The World Health Organisation (WHO), an arm of the United Nations, has pressed its panic button on the swine flu problem...oh pardon me, swine flu pandemic. Swine flu is classified a pandemic because of its wide global spread into some 74 countries, not due to the number of people infected or who have succumbed to the disease.

It is instructive to note that WHO has nothing to do with healthcare, or development and delivery of healthcare for that matter. WHO is a political policy-making body of the UN comprising 193 member countries. Recently WHO said that worldwide 27,000 people in 74 countries had been infected with the swine flu virus. WHO stated that 104 people have succumbed to the disease.

Interestingly, more potent diseases such as malaria, with a worldwide infection rate of 350-500 million people and over 16 million deaths, is not classified a pandemic. Similarly, tuberculosis has no such classification. Worldwide tuberculosis infects over 8.5 million yearly and annually accounts for 1.6 million deaths, with Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia as the hardest hit regions. Measles annually infects over 45 million people and generally kills 350 million yearly, 80 per cent of which are children under the age of 15.

Needless to say, measles infections are also most prevalent in the developing world. By contrast, dengue fever is endemic in over 100 countries. It leads to an estimated 30,000 deaths worldwide. “Some 2.5 billion people—two-fifths of the world’s population—are now at risk from dengue. WHO currently estimates there may be 50 million dengue infections worldwide every year” (www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs117/en/).

Dengue is transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, also known as the “floodwater” mosquito because it flourishes in such conditions. The more deadly dengue haemorrhagic fever remains a cause for great concern as Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are persistent throughout this country. Why is dengue not classified a pandemic? It has long met the criteria.

Globally, the annual death toll from the common flu is estimated to be between 250,000-500,000 with over a billion infections. Thus taking measures to protect against swine flu infection is sensible. However, the foregoing stats inform us that far more devastating diseases are at present decimating world populations. Developing countries are especially hard hit, yet diseases such as dengue are not receiving the attention given to swine flu and previously the avian bird flu virus.

Is WHO’s classification of swine flu as a pandemic justified? Certainly, since it is present in 74 countries. A panic over swine flu infection however is squarely misplaced, simply by virtue of the number of global infections (27,000) and deaths (104) compared with dengue, malaria and measles. In 2006, WHO warned of the deadly contagious A H5N1 avian bird flu virus. Short of the A H5N1 virus wiping out bird populations, birds were decimated by human intervention.

B Joseph
Via e-mail to the Trinidad & Tobago Guardian