Pharmaceutical Technologist - September 2007 - (Page 6)

News // Public health security threatened WHO has warned that international cooperation and the willingness of all countries to act effectively is needed to tackle “new and emerging threats”. The organization’s world health report — A safer future: global public health security in the 21st century lists six ‘key recommendations’to secure the highest level of global public health security. These include full implementation of the revised International Health Regulations (IHR 2005) by all countries; global cooperation in surveillance and outbreak alert and response; open sharing of knowledge, technologies and materials, including viruses and other laboratory samples, necessary to optimize secure global public health; global responsibility for capacity building within the public health infrastructure of all countries; cross-sector collaboration within governments; and increased global and national resources for training, surveillance, laboratory capacity, response networks and prevention campaigns. The report states that: “in our increasingly interconnected world, new diseases are emerging at an unprecedented rate, often with the ability to cross borders rapidly and spread.” Since 1967, at least 39 new pathogens have been identified, including HIV, Ebola haemorrhagic fever, Marburg fever and SARS. Other centuries-old threats, for example, pandemic influenza, malaria and tuberculosis, continue to threaten health through a “combination of mutation, rising resistance to antimicrobial medicines and weak health systems”. The report argues that high and rapid mobility of people is one factor increasing the spread of disease. Airlines now carry more than 2 billion passengers a year, “enabling people and the diseases that travel with them to pass from one country to another in a matter of hours”. Outlined are some of the “human factors”behind public health insecurity including inadequate investment in public health resulting from a false sense of security in the absence of infectious disease outbreaks, and unexpected policy changes. The report concludes by highlighting the need for “continued vigilance in managing the risks and consequences of the international spread of polio and the newly emerging strain of extensively drug-resistant TB”. New health threats have also emerged, which are linked to, according to the report, potential terrorist attacks, chemical incidents and radionuclear accidents. www.who.int European cancer survival improvements Cancer survival rates are increasing in most of Europe, according to a new survey, although the UK trails at the bottom of the table. The report in the Lancet Oncology reveals improvements in cancer survival and predicts that the large variations in survival between different nations may be reduced soon. The Eurocare-4 report includes data from 83 cancer registries in 23 countries covering approximately 2.7 million patients diagnosed between 1995 and 1999. The UK’s position is similar to some eastern European countries that spend less than a third of the UK’s healthcare budget per person. Nordic countries — excluding Denmark — and central Europe came top of the report’s table for survival for bowel, lung, breast, prostate and ovarian cancers, followed by southern Europe, the UK and Ireland, and eastern Europe. The researchers argued that if all countries had the mean survival rate of 57% of Norway, Sweden and Finland, there would be approximately 150000 (12%) fewer deaths in the 5 years following diagnosis. However, cancer experts have noted that much of the data contained in the report were collated before major investments were made in UK cancer care. The Cancer Plan was introduced by the government in 2000 following public reaction to the first Eurocare report, which had placed the UK near the bottom of the European ‘league table’, with some critics arguing that the latest figures suggest the plan is failing to have an impact. However, Professor Richard Sullivan, Cancer Research UK's director of clinical programmes, stated that the report showed “encouraging improvements for the UK”. “While there are genuine differences in the early diagnosis and treatment of cancer patients between the UK and other European countries, the degree of that difference remains uncertain. Comparisons between countries are difficult because survival data are not collected in the same way in all places,“ he said. Sullivan also noted that cancer is still not being diagnosed early enough in all cases, and that patients need to be assured of access to the best surgery, radiotherapy and other treatments: “This study shows that cancer is certainly not a ‘ticked box’. We need a sustained effort to beat the disease.” www.eurocare.it 6 September 2007 l pharmaceutical technologist http://www.who.int http://www.eurocare.it

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Pharmaceutical Technologist - September 2007

Contents Editor’s Comment News Morpheus Market Watch CPhI Worldwide 2007 Compliant Pharmaceutical Labelling Q&A

Pharmaceutical Technologist - September 2007

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.