Shigeru Omi
Shigeru Omi
Shigeru Omiis the current Regional Director of the Western Pacific Regional Office for the World Health Organization. He was born in Tokyo in 1949 and currently lives in Manila...
change course power serious situation within
The situation is very serious and getting worse. It is still within our power to change the course of this epidemic.
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I believe the momentum that is now building up will give us a chance to change the course of history and head off a pandemic caused by the H5N1 virus.
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Based upon past experience, approaching the Lunar calendar New Year, the number of cases will increase. That is our observation.
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Based our experience, the epidemic among poultry may temporarily diminish and then seriously return, which means we should keep alert and well prepared.
china good
China has done a very, very good job.
exposed people
many people have been exposed or potentially exposed.
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The number of human cases is on the rise ... and the virus continues to remain very changeable.
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In spite of this geographical expansion and diversity in the nature of the virus, when it comes to the risk of transmission, we don't have any hard evidence to indicate that the virus has become more infectious.
consequences economies global health public
But if we fail, the consequences for societies, economies and global public health could be immeasurable.
chickens connected controlled farming humans mingle practices view west
In my view this is connected by the differences in the farming practices. In the West farming practices are well controlled -- ducks, chickens and humans do not mingle together.
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In my view, Asia is doing quite reasonably well for communicable diseases that now we have reached the point we can afford to discuss suicides and mental health problems in general.
fear might report strong
In fact, fear that their flocks might be culled without compensation is a pretty strong disincentive to report an outbreak.
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We still believe it is possible to stop or delay a pandemic by implementing rapid containment measures very quickly.
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It is possible that European countries can bring this under control,