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Preparedness, preparedness, preparedness

From swine flu to climate change, Commonwealth Health Ministers will tackle key public health issues in Geneva this weekend

Preparedness, preparedness, preparedness

It is an important time in Geneva, as health ministers from the world’s nations arrive for the 62^nd World Health Assembly, starting Monday.

The current swine flu outbreak, which is now affecting 34 countries worldwide, will no doubt be preying on their minds. Preparedness for pandemic influenza tops the agenda.

For Commonwealth countries, the week of meetings begins a day earlier in this Swiss city. Health Ministers will hear from Dr Mike Ryan, Director Epidemic and Pandemic Alert and Response at the World Health Organisation on Sunday morning. It’s an opportunity for them to put questions directly to the WHO’s leading expert on the subject.

It's also a necessary and timely input into this year’s Commonwealth meeting, which officially is about preparedness of another kind: the potentially devastating impact of climate change on global health.

Last week, in London, the Lancet and University College London published a seminal report on this subject, described by Lancet’s Editor Richard Horton as ‘the Stern report for medics’. Commonwealth ministers in Geneva will receive six papers on managing the health effects of climate change, specially commissioned for this meeting.

They will also hear from two leading experts on the subject, Prof Tony McMichael from the Australian National University, Canberra, and Prof Sir Andrew Haines, Director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who will deliver the keynote address.

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