Swine Flu World-Wide Concern

As the WHO raise the swine flu outbreak alert level from phase 4 to 5, setting the stage for increased efforts by appropriate agencies, industries and communities to combat the infection, more emphasis now needs to be placed on mandatory testing at air and sea ports, with a reverse emphasis so as to concentrate on ports of departure from swine flu high risk regions rather than concentrating on the ports of arrival. This calls for mutual corporation between countries. It also calls for necessary assistance especially where a high risk country lacks the resources to conduct effective screening on the persons using their ports as an exit point. Such a move will reduce the risk to non-infected travelers since closeness and possible contact may not be avoided especially when traveling by air. This closeness necessitated by our mode of traveling is conducive to the transmission of any flu.

Besides, it is frightening to imagine what would happen if the outbreak gets to hit some populations where the number of inhabitants per doctor is about 50,000:1, countries like Angola, Mozambique, Congo, Namibia and Zambia, or even 33,500:1 as in Sudan, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Ethiopia and Niger. The shortage of personnel and equipment in the mentioned regions would lead to serious losses.

According to WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan, the virus "must be taken seriously because of its ability to spread to every country in the world," so lets join hands and bring and end to this pandemic because we can.