WHO Calls It Like It Sees Them

The editors at Effect Measure do not mince their words, though they also do not shy away from parsing them. The word of the moment? “Pandemic.” At issue is whether or not the official declaration of a pandemic should depend upon the severity of the disease in question, in addition to its geographic scope. They stand with the World Health Organization in saying that an epidemic of “global dimension” like H1N1 influenza, or swine flu, is clearly a pandemic, despite protestations of the moniker by Britain, Japan, and China, as reported by the Washington Post and the LA Times.

WHO is pretty clear on the term:

A disease epidemic occurs when there are more cases of that disease than normal. A pandemic is a worldwide epidemic of a disease.

Though the editors are more wry in their explanation of the kerfuffle: “The argument boils down to this. We shouldn’t call a pandemic a pandemic, because people might misunderstand that this means it’s a pandemic.”

So far, 40 countries have reported 9,830 cases of H1N1 influenza.

(HT: ScienceInsider)

Tags: influenza, public health

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