This week: WHO has problems, bird flu and big bio loss
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PPF: Health Security
PPF’s report The Next One: Preparing Canada for another health emergency outlines the lessons learned from the pandemic and how Canada can safeguard against future health emergencies. To keep the discussion going — and to keep Canadians informed — this newsletter looks at what’s happening in the world of health security each week. Here’s what we’re following:?
WHO’s troubles
The World Health Organization (WHO)?released its annual results report and it had some worrying news about?the state of health security. The agency reports it is not on track to reach the target of 1 billion more people better protected from health emergencies by 2025.?
“Although the coverage of vaccinations for high-priority pathogens shows improvement relative to the COVID-19 pandemic-related disruptions in 2020–2021, it has not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels,” stated the report.
On global health emergencies, it noted that there’s been “a steep increase” in humanitarian needs around the world “driven by overlapping and interacting aggravating factors, including the accelerating effects of climate change, increased conflict and insecurity, increasing food insecurity, weakened health systems in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic downturns and new infectious disease outbreaks.”
The report was released in advance of the WHO’s World Health Assembly, starting later this month in Geneva, Switzerland.?
Pandemic Treaty snag
Efforts to complete a Pandemic Treaty — now in its ninth round of talks over two years —? appear to have once again hit a roadblock.
Reports emerged last week that the U.K. is refusing to sign the Pandemic Treaty, arguing that it would involve giving away?a fifth of its vaccines. The Treaty, which is being negotiated at the World Health Organization, is aimed at getting rich nations to do more as part of a coordinated response to future outbreaks, including providing treatments and vaccines to poorer countries during the next health emergency.
"We will only support the adoption of the accord and accept it on behalf of the U.K., if it is?firmly?in the U.K. national interest? and respects national sovereignty," a spokesperson for Britain's Department of Health and Social Care said in a statement to Reuters.
Among health security experts there is a sense of urgency to figure out how to react to future outbreaks.? “If we fail to seize this window of opportunity which is closing … we’ll be?just as vulnerable?as we were in 2019,” Suerie Moon, co-director of the Global Health Center at Geneva’s Graduate Institute, told the Associated Press.?
World governments have agreed to?continue negotiations.?
Big bio loss
A new study reveals changes in biodiversity are the top environmental factor in the rise of more dangerous infectious diseases affecting people, plants and animals.? It’s a bigger factor than chemical pollution and climate change, though all are associated with “increases in disease-related end points or harm,” notes the paper,?published in the journal Nature.
Biodiversity change, which includes the loss of species, accounted for a 393 percent? greater increase in disease compared with 111 percent for chemical pollution and 65 percent for climate change.? The research is a meta-analysis that examined?1,000 previous studies of global environmental drivers of infectious disease. A widely held hypothesis in ecology known as the dilution effect says that higher biodiversity limits the spread of infectious diseases. More species ‘dilute’ the spread of infection. As species disappear, the more effective spreaders of disease become more dominant.
“The take-home messages?are that biodiversity loss, climate change and introduced species increase disease, whereas urbanization decreases it,” lead researcher Jason Rohr, from the University of Notre Dame, told?The Guardian. Urbanization is typically? associated with?a loss?of biodiversity, but other factors are at play: better public health infrastructure and less interaction with wildlife in cities means less disease.
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The authors say the evidence points to the need for mitigation efforts. “Reducing greenhouse gas emissions, managing ecosystem health, and preventing biological invasions and biodiversity loss could help to reduce the burden of plant, animal and human diseases.”
It should also serve as a wakeup call, according to one biologist not associated to the analysis. “This paper is one of the?strongest pieces of evidence?that I think has been published that shows how important it is health systems start getting ready to exist in a world with climate change, with biodiversity loss,” Colin Carlson, a global change biologist at Georgetown University, told?The New York Times.?
Bird flu watch
The U.S. is stepping up its monitoring of the commercial milk supply as fears grow around the spread of H5N1 in dairy cattle. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced an additional $8 million in funding to support ongoing testing and monitoring,?as well as staff training on biosecurity procedures. It may also be used to “allow the FDA to partner with universities on?critical research questions.”?
Tests thus far have shown the milk supply to be safe, though the FDA is warning against the consumption of raw, unpasteurized milk. FDA research shows that pasteurization is effective at destroying the virus.
To date there has only been one human case of H5N1 virus infection, caused by exposure to dairy cattle in Texas, where the virus was first reported in cattle. The virus has been detected in 36 dairy cattle herds over nine U.S. states. So far, Canada has not reported any cases of the virus in cows.
"The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) and Health Canada are monitoring this situation closely and would like to reassure Canadians that commercially sold milk and milk products remain safe to consume," said the?CFIA in a statement.
Despite the low risks to people, there are concerns about gaps in testing and the potential for the virus to mutate. “This epizootic has caught people?tremendously by surprise,” Gregory Gray, a professor of infectious diseases at the University of Texas Medical Branch, told?The Guardian. “We’ve never seen this amount of infection, nor have we seen it move so fast.”
Pandemic preparedness funding
The federal government recently announced $575-million in funding for projects at 14 research institutions to bolster Canada’s health security preparedness. The funds will “play a foundational part in helping Canada develop a competitive bio-manufacturing and life-science sector,” said Valérie Laflamme, associate vice-president with the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
While a step in the right direction, health security experts say a more?sustained investment will be needed. Still missing is the creation of an agency?like America’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, the new standard for health security preparedness.?
As PPF said in?The Next One: Preparing Canada for another health emergency: “The pandemic laid bare a glaring absence: Canada lacks an institution to connect a chain of urgent requirements and roles in the face of a health crisis. Goodwill among Canada’s allies, quick approval of vaccines and test kits, willingness to pay for procurement and the creation of new task forces and science tables — notably with clear mandates to provide advice — got the job done against all odds.”
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This newsletter is produced by journalists at PPF Media. It maintains complete editorial independence.?