Approximately one year since the first cases of pandemic H1N1 influenza were confirmed in April 2009, experts gathered at Europe’s largest conference on infectious diseases – the European Congress on Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) – and also look back at the public health response and identify both lessons learned and future recommendations.
Speaking at the Congress, professor Javier Garau, president of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID), organizers of ECCMID, stressed, “Predicting the exact nature and development of influenza viruses remain challenging as they are notoriously variable and you have to expect the unexpected with such pandemics.”
Worldwide at least 16,813 people are confirmed as having died from H1N1, although the true toll is probably many times higher and will take at least a year after the pandemic ends to establish. “In the main Europe has been fortunate so far, greatly helped by the quickness of reporting, the public health response, social distancing precautions, and vaccine production and roll out campaign,” Garau added.
With cases now being reported in Southeast Asia and West Africa, the World Health Organization is stepping up its response to pandemic flu in the developing world with the distribution of millions of doses of the vaccine to countries in Africa, Eastern Europe, Asia and the Caribbean.
The response by the global health community has been attacked by some as creating a “false pandemic.” However, experts at ECCMID say there is never room for complacency when dealing with pandemic influenza. “It would have been irresponsible not to prepare as we did. Such pandemics don’t follow set patterns and each is different. What is crucial is to reflect on the response and adapt our future planning as appropriate,” said Garau.
A year ago at ECCMID a late breaking session on H1N1 was organized jointly by ESCMID and The Lancet. Speaking at ECCMID this year, the editor of The Lancet Infectious Diseases, John McConnell, said, “Although critics can point to an excessive response to the pandemic, the global health community needs to prepare for the worse with flu and if we don’t, we haven’t learned the lessons of history.”
