The WHO’s amendments to the International Health Regulations: second reading

I’ll help you for free. I owe it to my daughters: gurus and illusionists have taken 2 years of their precious lives, and I watched, impotent.

We received a private email from an experienced statistician who, after reading our post and the WHO International Health Regulations draft amendments being discussed now, offered his help and explained why. His message seems to embody the feelings of many of our readers and our own. But let’s proceed with order.

WHO had a major role in the 2009-2010 pandemic. One of its early contributions was to change the definition of a pandemic to suit the damp squib facing them after Margaret Chan, the then director, panicked over an ILI outbreak in Mexico and Southern USA and declared a pandemic. Perhaps no one remembers it, and maybe no one realises that Chan now sits in the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), supervised directly by the Chinese Communist Party. Well, you know now.

It’s worth remembering that “pandemic” was synonymous with influenza, and you can guess why.

The Story of Influenza Antivirals: Part 15

We will devote a future post with the details of the dance of the seven definitions and timelines, but…