Spurred by growing fears of a pandemic, such as one involving bird flu, the World Health Organization (WHO) adopted a new set of global health procedures yesterday designed to better to control outbreaks of dangerous diseases.
The new regulations, which were adopted at the annual meeting of the UN health agency's key decision-making body, will set out the "universally accepted rules of the game," said Guenael Rodier, the WHO's head of communicable diseases surveillance and response.
"This is a major step forward for international health," said WHO chief Dr. Lee Jong-wook. "These new regulations recognize that diseases do not respect national boundaries. They are urgently needed to help limit the threats to public health."
The regulations will empower the WHO to restrict worldwide travel and commerce to and from affected areas.
Countries now have 18 months to put the new procedures into national law.
"We hope to get a more secure world," Rodier said.
The new rules outline the terms under which countries must notify disease outbreaks to the WHO, including how quickly and details of the infection.
Last week, the WHO said bird flu may be capable of human-to-human transmission, raising fears of a global pandemic. Although only a few dozen people have so far died from bird flu since it appeared in 2003, experts fear that if the virus mutates to allow easy transmission among humans, it could spread rapidly and widely, killing millions of people.
The current regulations have been on the drafting table since 2003, after the outbreak of new and more infectious diseases such as SARS, Ebola and bird flu made the international community more wary of worldwide pandemics. The original regulations date back to 1969, when the list of diseases included only cholera, the plague and yellow fever.
It is the first time that the regulations include public health threats resulting from bioterrorism, chemicals spills or Chernobyl-type nuclear accidents.
But several countries, including Iran and other unspecified Middle Eastern nations, opposed including such measures until very late in the negotiating process, health officials said.
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