Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
WHO Needs Radical Changes To Cope With Health Emergencies, Preliminary Report Finds
The World Health Organization needs structural reform and a radical change of culture to enable it to cope with future health emergencies, a panel of experts said in a preliminary report issued Monday that was critical of the agency鈥檚 delayed reaction to the Ebola crisis. (Cumming-Bruce, 5/11)
It may be hard to soften the panic that already surrounds mad cow disease, or swine flu or West Nile virus. But if new World Health Organization recommendations take hold, the next time an infectious disease is identified, it could have a much more innocuous effect on the public psyche. Last week, the WHO issued best practices for how to name a newly born or identified human infectious disease. Scientists and the public should strike from their list of disease names any mention of an animal species, such as avian flu and mad cow disease; type of food; cultural or occupational references; specific locations such as West Nile virus, Lyme (a town in Connecticut) disease and Ebola (a river in the Democratic Republic of the Congo); nor the names of people, such as Alzheimer's, Lou Gehrig's disease. (Storrs, 5/11)
