PIP (Pandemic influenza preparedness)

While No Human-to-Human Transmission Yet, Scientists Are Concerned About Rapid Spread of Avian Flu

dlegge — Sun, 05 May 2024 03:25:45 +0000

While No Human-to-Human Transmission Yet, Scientists Are Concerned About Rapid Spread of Avian Flu

26 April 2024

dlegge Sun, 05/05/2024 - 13:25

Author/s

Zuzanna Stawiska

HPW

While No Human-to-Human Transmission Yet, Scientists Are Concerned About Rapid …

While no cases of human-to-human transmission have been recorded in the current H5N1 avian outbreak, scientists are concerned about its transmission speed in mammals and whether this might result in a mutated pathogen that can infect people more easily.

“H5N1 is (an) influenza infection, predominantly started in poultry and ducks and has spread effectively over the course of the last one or two years to become a global zoonotic – animal – pandemic,” said Dr Jeremy Farrar, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Chief Scientist.

“The great concern, of course, is that in doing so and infecting ducks and chickens – but now increasingly mammals – that that virus now evolves and develops the ability to infect humans. And then critically, the ability to go from human-to-human transmission,” Farrar told a media briefing in Geneva last week.

At the WHO’s global media briefing on Wednesday, WHO epidemiologist Dr Maria Van Kerkhove that “we have not seen human-to-human transmission in the recent cases, and I think that’s really important because there’s a lot of news right now on influenza”.

Keywords

Influenza

PIP (Pandemic influenza preparedness)

Squaring The Circle On Equity in a Pathogen Access And Benefit Sharing System

dlegge — Sat, 20 Jan 2024 23:40:52 +0000

Squaring The Circle On Equity in a Pathogen Access And Benefit Sharing System

01 November 2023

dlegge Sun, 21/01/2024 - 10:40

GHF

Equity and ABS

Research and development (R&D) needed to manufacture and deliver key pandemic response products (PRPs) such as diagnostics, vaccines, and therapeutics requires access to novel pathogen samples and their genomic sequencing data (GSD). Yet, many low and middle-income countries (LMICs) understandably do not want to share pathogens and GSD unless they can ensure that the benefits of R&D will be equitably distributed.

Many believe that without an agreed Pathogen Access and Benefits Sharing (PABS) system (or some other mechanism to ensure equitable access), neither of the two pandemic preparedness negotiations at the World Health Organization (WHO) can be successfully concluded. The WHO is currently negotiating two historic agreements, one on substantially amending the International Health Regulations (IHR) and the other on a new Pandemic Agreement (also known as the Pandemic Treaty). We acknowledge that an PABS system may not eventually ensure robust equity, yet it currently stands the best chance to make the world a little safer and fairer. This makes it worth our while to think about how to make PABS work for equity.

Keywords

NagoyaProtocol

ABS

PIP (Pandemic influenza preparedness)

A Little Fairer is Not Good Enough: Why ABS Will NOT Ensure Equity

dlegge — Sat, 20 Jan 2024 23:02:25 +0000

A Little Fairer is Not Good Enough: Why ABS Will NOT Ensure Equity

15 November 2023

dlegge Sun, 21/01/2024 - 10:02

GHF

Equity and ABS

Access and benefit-sharing (ABS) has been a mainstay of international law for more than 30 years, but it is hard to find concrete examples of it resulting in fair and equitable outcomes.

More specifically, its use in global health via the World Health Organisation’s Pandemic Influenza Preparedness (PIP) Framework remains untested because there has not been an influenza pandemic since it entered into force in 2011 – this is the main trigger for the sharing of benefits in the form of vaccines and other medical countermeasures. We have repeatedly argued that there are very good reasons to think it will fail if and when it is called upon to deliver equitable access to countermeasures to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) during a pandemic. Despite this uncertainty, the negotiations for a Pandemic Agreement have used the PIP Framework as a model to deliver equitable benefit-sharing during future pandemics.

Keywords

NagoyaProtocol

PIP (Pandemic influenza preparedness)

Pathogen Access & Benefit Sharing System: A Key to Operationalize Equity in Pandemic Preparedness & Response

dlegge — Sat, 20 Jan 2024 22:59:36 +0000

Pathogen Access & Benefit Sharing System: A Key to Operationalize Equity in Pandemic Preparedness & Response

06 December 2023

dlegge Sun, 21/01/2024 - 09:59

GHF

Access and benefit sharing

In 2005, developing countries, especially desperate South-East Asian countries hardest hit by the H5N1 outbreaks, failed to get access to vaccines developed using flu virus strains circulating in affected countries, shared through the network of laboratories known at that time as “Global Influenza Surveillance Network” (GISN).

Manufacturers prioritized supplies to rich countries that had provided financial grants for production and signed advance purchase agreements to be at the front of the supply queue during an influenza outbreak. Moreover, WHO-designated laboratories, e.g. the US Centres for Disease Control (CDC), a WHO Collaborating Centre and pharmaceutical companies with whom biological samples and sequence information were shared in good faith, also claimed patents over parts of materials shared (e.g. genes/sequences) and their use in the development of diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines. The GISN system lacked a regulatory framework governing the sharing of influenza viruses of pandemic potential (IVPP) and, with that, a system for transparency, accountability and equity.

These issues came to a head at the 60^th World Health Assembly (WHA) in 2007 when more than 20 developing countries brought this issue to the WHA, seeking a better equitable system.

Keywords

NagoyaProtocol

PIP (Pandemic influenza preparedness)