The following is an abstract of Margaret Chan's speech delivered on April 2nd during World Health Day debate on international health security held in Singapore.
"We live in a world where threats to health arise from the speed and volume of air travel, the way we produce and trade food, the way we use and misuse antibiotics, and the way we manage the environment. All of these activities have intensified the chance of outbreaks of epidemic-prone diseases. Outbreaks today are larger in two ways. First, changes in the way humanity inhabits the planet have led to the emergence of new diseases in unprecedented numbers. In the thirty years from 1973 to 2003, when SARS appeared, 39 pathogenic agents capable of causing human disease were newly identified. Among them are Ebola, HIV/AIDS, legionnaire's disease, Hanta virus, Hendra virus, Nipah virus, and H5N1 avian influenza. This is an ominous trend. It is historically unprecedented, and it is certain to continue.
Second, people are highly mobile and interconnected in the 21st century. SARS taught us how quickly a new disease can spread along the routes of international air travel. Financial markets are closely intertwined. These trends mean that the disruption caused by an outbreak in one part of the world can quickly ricochet throughout the global financial and business systems.
In June 2007, the revised International Health Regulations will come into force. For the first time, WHO is authorized to act on media reports to request verification and offer collaboration to an affected country. If this offer is refused, WHO can alert the world to an emergency of international concern using information other than official government notifications.
Population growth, urbanization trends and unsanitary conditions in many parts of the world create ideal conditions for explosive epidemics of well-known diseases, such as yellow fever and dengue. Environmental degradation and changing weather patterns allow known diseases to flare up in unexpected places, at unexpected times, and with unprecedented numbers of cases. Today, mainstay drugs fail much faster than the pace of development of replacement drugs. Such threats reinforce our need for shared responsibility and collective action in the face of universal vulnerability, in sectors well beyond health."
