Story of Influenza Antivirals: Part 20

The Council of Europe investigation of the handling of the influenza H1N1 “pandemic.”

In March 2010, The Council of Europe met to discuss the handling of the 2009-10 influenza H1N1 by member states. The handling had been criticised in an initial motion at the end of 2009 by Dr Wolgang Wodarg, an epidemiologist and then outgoing MEP. The Council appointed the late Paul Flynn, then a Labour MP as rapporteur. 

One of the first criticisms focussed on the apparently changing definition of the influenza pandemic, which WHO appeared to change and tone down in May 2009 in relation to the far-from-devastating impact of the influenza outbreak.

In the Bulletin of the World Health Organisation, Peter Doshi summed up the initial controversy as follows:

“Since 2003, the top of the WHO Pandemic Preparedness homepage has contained the following statement: “An influenza pandemic occurs when a new influenza virus appears against which the human population has no immunity, resulting in several simultaneous epidemics worldwide with enormous numbers of deaths and illness.”6 However, on 4 May …