Infectious diseases spreading faster than ever: U.N.*

Thu Jan 24, 2008 2:54pm EDT

By Laura MacInnis

GENEVA (Reuters) - Infectious diseases are emerging more quickly and
spreading faster around the globe than ever and becoming increasingly
difficult to treat, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday.

With billions of people moving around the planet every year, the U.N.
agency said in its annual World Health Report: "An outbreak or epidemic
in one part of the world is only a few hours away from becoming an
imminent threat somewhere else."

WHO director-general Margaret Chan said mass travel could facilitate the
rapid spread of infectious diseases.

"No country can shield itself from invasion by a pathogen incubating in
an airline passenger or an insect hiding in a cargo hold," Chan told
reporters.

The U.N. agency warned that there was a good possibility of another
major scourge like AIDS, SARS or Ebola fever with the potential of
killing millions appearing in the coming years.

"Infectious diseases are now spreading geographically much faster than
at any time in history," the WHO said.

It said it was vital to keep watch for new threats like the emergence in
2003 of SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which spread from
China to 30 countries and killed 800 people.

"It would be extremely naive and complacent to assume that there will
not be another disease like AIDS, another Ebola, or another SARS, sooner
or later," the report warned.

Since the 1970s, the WHO said, new threats have been identified at an
"unprecedented rate" of one or more every year, meaning that nearly 40
diseases exist today which were unknown just over a generation ago.

Over the last five years alone, WHO experts had verified more than 1,100
epidemics of different diseases.

It was therefore vital for countries to share information on outbreaks
so risks can be assessed and mitigated, Chan said.

MONITORING VITAL

The report called for renewed efforts to monitor, prevent and control
epidemic-prone illnesses such as cholera, yellow fever and meningococcal
diseases.

International assistance may be required to help health workers in
poorer countries identify and contain outbreaks of emerging viral
diseases such as Ebola and Marburg hemorrhagic fever, the WHO said.

It warned global efforts to control infectious diseases had been
"seriously jeopardized" by widespread drug resistance, a consequence of
poor medical treatment and misuse of antibiotics.

This is a particular problem with tuberculosis. Extensively
drug-resistant (XDR-TB) strains of the contagious respiratory ailment
have emerged worldwide.

Although the H5N1 bird flu virus has not mutated into a form that passes
easily between humans, as many scientists had feared, the next influenza
pandemic was "likely to be of an avian variety" and could affect some
1.5 billion people.

Chan noted that the last influenza pandemic was in 1968 and had killed
about 1 million people. "We have learned from previous pandemics that
even the mildest pandemic causes too many premature deaths. We don't
want to see that," she said.

She urged countries affected by human cases of bird flu, including
Indonesia, to continue sharing virus samples, deemed crucial to tracking
the virus and to developing a pandemic vaccine.

(Additional reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva)