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International Response: WHO to Consider Improved Regulations World Health Organization officials are expected today to begin discussing new powers to combat international epidemics that could be caused by bioterrorism. The agency is scheduled to begin its 10-day annual meeting today in Geneva (see GSN, Oct. 22, 2001). The World Health Assembly is expected to consider revisions to WHO guidelines that would require members to report a much larger number of diseases than currently required, according to the Washington Post. The revisions would also give the organization the authority to respond even when members will not admit they are facing a health crisis. “These are major changes in the way WHO works,” said David Heymann, executive director of WHO’s communicable diseases program. “The way we work now is passive. This would now be active,” he said. The disease outbreaks that nations must currently report — cholera, yellow fever and plague — “with the possible exception of cholera, are not really what you’re worried about anymore,” Kimball said. “If you leave a body of internationally agreed regulations that limited, it becomes irrelevant,” he said. The proposed revisions would create a new, more general requirement that countries report any “public health emergency of international concern,” according to the Post. The Bush administration was reviewing its position on the proposed revisions late last week and has not made its position public. The White House is concerned that the proposals “not go too far,” said Health and Human Services Department spokesman William Pierce. “You want to be very clear about what you should do in these cases, but at the same time you don’t want to create undue panic or take undue actions,” Pierce said (Rob Stein, Washington Post, May 18). The World Health Assembly meeting is also expected to include discussion on the eradication of smallpox virus stockpiles, according to a WHO release (see GSN, Nov. 6, 2002; World Health Organization release, Feb. 27).
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