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IMF Webcast: H1N1 Press Conference

 

 

# 3804

 

Yesterday (October 4th) the World Bank Human Development Network (HDN) Held an hour-long press conference with Ms. Joy Phumaphi (Vice President, World Bank ), Dr. Julie Hall (WHO), and Dr. David Nabarro (Senior Flu Coordinator, UN) on the emerging H1N1 pandemic.


We’ve got the archived webcast available for viewing, along with the transcript available as a pdf download.

 

Annual Meetings 2009
H1N1 Update Press Briefing 
October 4, 2009


Annual Meetings 2009
October 4, 2009


H1N1 Update Press Briefing  (pdf transcript)

 

IMF Webcasts

Press Briefing: World Bank Human Development Network (HDN) - H1N1 Pandemic Flu Update
Sunday, October 04, 2009   1:30 PM

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One of the exchanges of particular interest involved a reminder that the H5N1 bird flu is still circulating, and remains a threat.

 

 

MR. HAY:  Let me ask you one more thing before I turn to Joy Phumaphi.

Avian flu is still out there, isn't it?  The word "complacency" comes to mind, that we cannot afford to be complacent about H1N1 or H5N2, the other "H" virus out there, pandemic in commercial poultry and in other bird life but not yet in the general population.  Obviously, we wouldn't want to see a combination of these  two viruses.

 

DR. NABARRO:   These are difficult issues for governments, they are difficult issues sometimes also to cover in the media, because we are talking about threats that are really very unpleasant, but at the same time, we can't state with any certainty whether these threats are going to become real.


But here is the situation.  We have a highly pathogenic bird flu virus still circulating in several countries.  We have worked hard to control it.  There have been incredible efforts, a lot of them supported by the World Bank, to make certain that the bird flu virus can be gotten under control and to improve the safety of poultry-rearing, because this was one of the environments in which the virus was circulating.


And our concern now is that this bird flu virus H5N1 and the current pandemic virus H1N1 could somehow come together with the genetic material re-assorting between the two viruses and create something that would have very unpleasant consequences for humanity.

 

I can't tell you, nor can anyone else tell you, whether this is highly likely or in the realm of extremely unlikelihood, but it is a sufficiently worrying possibility that we have to work very hard to try to either prevent it from happening or, if it does happen, to be able to respond very quickly.  And that is one of the issues that my colleagues and I are working on very hard is trying to make certain that we are prepared for the recombination of material between different influenza viruses and the possible consequences that they could cause for humanity.

 

This is an interesting and informative hour.  Well worth taking the time to watch (or read the transcript).

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Pandemic
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Nabarro

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