Newsletter

WHO Risk Assessment of human infection with avian influenza A(H7N9) virus

On 8 April 2014 WHO conducted a risk assessment in accordance with the WHO recommendations for rapid risk assessment of acute public health events.

Taking into consideration all information available to date to WHO, it is concluded that the public health risk from avian influenza A(H7N9) virus has not changed since the previous assessments of 24 and 11 March and 28 February 2014.

MERS-CoV: Towards a Better Understanding of the Disease

Food and Agriculture Organization;  06 May 2014 - The Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) first emerged in 2012 and has caused 4991 human infections, including 137 deaths based on reports from affected countries as of 4 May 2014. The majority of cases have been detected in Saudi Arabia although cases were also reported in Jordan, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen. Countries in Asia, Europe and North Africa have reported individual cases in travellers returning from the Middle East. The last countries that reported their first imported MERS-CoV case include Egypt and the United States of America.

Multi-sector training - a practical challenge for multi-sector collaboration

The Collaborative Arrangement for the Prevention and Management of Public Health Events in Civil Aviation (CAPSCA: www.capsca.org) programme is a multi-sector initiative of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a United Nations Specialized Agency based in Montreal, Canada.  During eight years of CAPSCA operation and in many meetings and discussions between specialists with a variety of different backgrounds it has become clear that one of the challenges of working in a multi-disciplinary way is the potential for confusion due to the use of language in one discipline that may have a different meaning in another.

Antimicrobial resistance: global report on surveillance 2014

Overview

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) threatens the effective prevention and treatment of an ever-increasing range of infections caused by bacteria, parasites, viruses and fungi. An increasing number of governments around the world are devoting efforts to a problem so serious that it threatens the achievements of modern medicine. A post-antibiotic era – in which common infections and minor injuries can kill – far from being an apocalyptic fantasy, is instead a very real possibility for the 21st Century.

Update on Human infection with avian influenza A(H5N1) viruses

From 2003 through 31 December 2013, 648 laboratory-confirmed human cases of avian influenza A(H5N1) virus infection have been officially reported to WHO from 15 countries. Of these cases, 384 died.

H5N1 viruses are considered endemic in poultry in at least six countries (alphabetically: Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia and Vietnam) with sporadic detection in wild birds and poultry outbreaks occurring in other countries. The virus also is circulating widely in other countries in those regions. 

TASW Newsletter Editorial - January 2014

Dear Colleagues,

Members of the Towards A Safer World (TASW) network are committed to improving their expertise and increasing their effectiveness.  They do this by exchanging, testing, refining and promoting their approaches, drawing on lessons of experience, and building a compendium of best practice.  They offer examples to each other, they identify techniques they have found to be useful, and they ensure that all have a chance to see research outputs, project reports and case studies that might be useful.   They do this through exchanging information  either face to face or via the TASW network newsletter.  This is the fifth issue of the newsletter.  Each issue isavailable on TASW website at http://www.towardsasaferworld.org . Feedback from network members suggests that they are appreciated by members of the network and by wide range of other stakeholders.

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