Swine Flu Scare Overestimated by WHO, Says India
Posted on Jan 21, 2010 by Reena Daruwalla | Comments 0
The union minister of health in India has questioned the role of the World Health Organisation in overreacting to the H1N1 Swine flu scare and declaring it to be a dangerous pandemic. According to this Times of India report, an inquiry is to be demanded into the role of WHO and an alleged nexus between WHO officials and pharma companies.
The minister, Dinesh Trivedi said it was important to find out whether there was ever a nexus between pharmaceutical companies and WHO which made the global health watchdog declare H1N1 flu a pandemic virus. ”We definitely demand an inquiry. WHO is not god,” he was reported as having said.
Earlier WHO director general Margaret Chan herself had said that the H1N1 pandemic was not as serious as anticipated. She said that this was the first pandemic to occur since the revolution in communications and information technologies. For the first time in history, the international community could watch a pandemic unfold, and chart its evolution, in real time.
According to her the worst may be over but cautioned “But it would be unwise for anyone to reach firm conclusions before April, when the normal influenza season usually ends. There is still quite a lot of winter left.”
Health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad however gave a more toned down response, and implied that the swine flu scare had helped prepare for other pandemics in the future. “We have been telling people not to panic over the H1N1 virus. The only good thing is that the alarm has left us well prepared for a similar influenza pandemic in the future. In the last six months, virus testing laboratories have increased from the existing two at NICD, Delhi and NIV, Pune to 44 laboratories. Out of these, 26 are in the public sector and 18 in the private sector,” he said
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Posted in: Swine Flu News • WHO
