Epidemias (Continuación)

How Well Does Masking Work? And Other Pandemic Questions We Need to Answer.

InternacionalSalud Pública

When the coronavirus took off in 2020, the unknowns were immense, as was the urgency. It was clear that the virus was novel, that it was spreading widely and that it was killing many of the people it infected. And there was no vaccine or proven drug treatment. This was the context in which states first mandated masks, issued stay-at-home orders and closed schools, among other measures — an emergency.

But now we should have more data from this pandemic to guide our decisions. We don’t send rockets into space without collecting data to monitor their progress and detect if they are veering off course.…  Seguir leyendo »

Determinar el origen de la pandemia es difícil. Prevenirla no debería serlo

InternacionalSalud Pública

En 1999, el Departamento de Salud del Estado de Nueva York me pidió que analizara muestras del cerebro de residentes de Queens que padecían encefalitis, o inflamación cerebral. Para mi sorpresa, descubrimos que estaban infectados del virus del Nilo Occidental, un virus transmitido por mosquitos del que nunca se había tenido noticia en Norteamérica. ¿Cómo llegó a Queens un virus endémico de África y el Medio Oriente?

En aquel momento, los científicos plantearon la hipótesis de que los mosquitos se habían colado en un vuelo procedente de Tel Aviv. Parecía factible que estos polizones se alimentaran de gansos infectados en Israel antes de infectar a las aves de Nueva York.…  Seguir leyendo »

How Did No-Mandate Sweden End Up With Such an Average Pandemic?

EuropaUnión Europea, , ,

If you know one thing about Sweden’s pandemic, it is almost certainly that the country followed a radical, contrarian public health path. Its hands-off approach to Covid-19 mitigation — no stay-at-home orders to begin with, and no mask mandates later on — was one that many on the pandemic left quickly derided as sadistic public policy and many on the pandemic right praised as enlightened.

That was the story three years ago, and although the terms of the debate have been somewhat frozen in time since, the argument has been burning again. In recent weeks, the former state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell, the architect of the Swedish response, has been taking a sort of victory lap through the media.…  Seguir leyendo »

We Have Cutting-Edge Science to Make Vaccines. But Will Everyone Benefit?

InternacionalSalud Pública,

As a physician-scientist who has spent nearly 40 years studying viruses and immunity, I can speak to the scientific advances that made rapid Covid-19 vaccine development possible. I oversaw the work at the National Institutes of Health’s Vaccine Research Center that provided the basis for designing and evaluating the initial Covid-19 vaccines and antibodies.

If anything about the pandemic is remembered as positive, it will be how science ‌was applied to rapidly produce medical countermeasures‌. ‌

But despite the scientific successes, I have doubts about our ability to deal with the next pandemic threat as readily as we dealt with Covid-19 — even if it is a better-known virus like influenza.…  Seguir leyendo »

Me preocupa que estemos volviendo a cometer los mismos errores

InternacionalSalud Pública  

Imagina que hay un pequeño incendio en tu cocina. La alarma de incendios se activa y advierte del peligro a todos los que están cerca. Alguien llama al número de emergencias. Intentas apagar el fuego, quizá incluso tengas un extintor debajo del fregadero. Si no funciona, ya sabes cómo evacuar el lugar de manera segura. Para cuando sales, ya está llegando un camión de bomberos. Los bomberos utilizan la toma de agua de enfrente de tu casa para apagar las llamas antes de que las casas de tus vecinos corran el riesgo de incendiarse.

Debemos prepararnos para combatir los brotes de enfermedades del mismo modo en que nos preparamos para combatir los incendios.…  Seguir leyendo »

‘I Worry We’re Making the Same Mistakes Again’

InternacionalSalud Pública  

Imagine there’s a small fire in your kitchen. Your fire alarm goes off, warning everyone nearby about the danger. Someone calls 911. You try to put the fire out yourself — maybe you even have a fire extinguisher under the sink. If that doesn’t work, you know how to safely evacuate. By the time you get outside, a fire truck is already pulling up. Firefighters use the hydrant in front of your house to extinguish the flames before any of your neighbors’ homes are ever at risk of catching fire.

‌We need to prepare to fight disease outbreaks just as we prepare to fight fires.…  Seguir leyendo »

Cómo prepararse para la próxima pandemia

InternacionalSalud Pública

A fines del año pasado, participé en un ejercicio pensado para ver qué sucedería si el mundo estuviera ante una nueva enfermedad que se propagara con rapidez, sin ninguna advertencia.

El ejercicio se llevó a cabo en varias reuniones organizadas por el consejo consultivo de la Organización Mundial de la Salud, en respuesta a una nueva pandemia de consecuencias serias, un riesgo que la OMS llama “enfermedad X”.

Entre quienes participaron en el ejercicio había ministros de salud y altos funcionarios de salud pública de nueve países. La urgencia de los acontecimientos los obligó a tomar decisiones políticas difíciles en poco tiempo y con información escasa.…  Seguir leyendo »

In an area affected by the bird flu off the coast of Perros-Guirec, France, September 2022. Stephane Mahe / Reuters

InternacionalSalud Pública,

In 2005, U.S. President George W. Bush stood at a lectern in Bethesda, Maryland, to make an important announcement. He was joined by five members of his cabinet, two senators, three congressmen, and multiple international guests. It was an unusual show of force for a press conference, and with two unpopular wars underway and the response to Hurricane Katrina still floundering, there was plenty else to attend to.

“Leaders at every level of government have a responsibility to confront dangers before they appear and engage the American people on the best course of action”, he declared. A failure to do so, he said, could cost millions of lives and trillions of dollars.…  Seguir leyendo »

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) comments on a report about the origins of the coronavirus at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

InternacionalSalud Pública,

Americans were surprised to learn this week that the U.S. Energy Department has changed its initial assessment on the origins of the virus that sparked the covid pandemic. The department’s analysts now believe that a lab-related accident was most likely, albeit with “low confidence”. Immediately, those who favor a lab-accident hypothesis claimed vindication, while those who favor a natural-origin theory poo-pooed the report.

Both camps are missing the point. The significance of the Energy Department’s disclosure — along with the FBI’s subsequent revelation that it too believes that the coronavirus emerged because of a Wuhan lab leak — is that the government’s investigations are continuing and still turning up new information.…  Seguir leyendo »

Outside an emergency room in Chengdu, China, December 2022. Tingshu Wang / Reuters

MundoAsia, ,

Over the past three months, the Chinese government has faced a seemingly debilitating series of crises. In late November, after years of large-scale lockdowns, closures, quarantines, and almost constant mass testing, Chinese citizens took to the streets and, for the first time, called into question the leadership of President Xi Jinping. Soon after, in response to the simmering discontent and other pressures, the government ended, virtually overnight, the “zero COVID” measures it had staked its public reputation on for nearly three years. Perhaps not surprisingly, what followed was a public health emergency in which the virus spread across some 80 percent of China’s highly vulnerable population.…  Seguir leyendo »

El incendio de Dixie en California fue el segundo incendio más grande en la historia del estado. Arrasó con más de 963.000 acres en 2021. Josh Edelson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

EuropaUnión Europea, , ,

El número de muertes reportadas por el terremoto en Turquía y Siria aumenta todos los días. No es solo una tragedia local en la que muere gente de un país muy lejano. Los desastres naturales han golpeado y golpearán en todo el mundo, incluido Estados Unidos. ¿Cuáles son sus repercusiones? ¿Qué lecciones se pueden aprender de ellos?

Tal vez la lección más destacada sea esta: la mala suerte es inevitable y debemos anticiparnos y prepararnos para ella.

Para los estadounidenses, quizá nuestra primera asociación con los terremotos sea el que destruyó a San Francisco en 1906. Se estima que murieron alrededor de 3000 personas, pero ha habido al menos ocho terremotos documentados desde el año 1500 en el mundo con un número total de fallecimientos mayor a 100.000 personas, entre ellos el terremoto de Tokio de 1923 que acabó con la vida de 143.000 personas, superado por uno que dejó un saldo de casi un millón de personas fallecidas en China en 1556.…  Seguir leyendo »

Un pelícano que se sospecha murió a causa de la influenza aviar H5N1 en una playa de Perú en diciembre. Ernesto Benavides/Agence France-Presse vía Getty Images

InternacionalSalud Pública, ,  

Mientras el mundo apenas está comenzando a recuperarse de los estragos de la COVID-19, ya se enfrenta a una posible pandemia provocada por un patógeno mucho más mortífero.

Desde hace mucho tiempo, la gripe aviar —llamada más formalmente influenza aviar—ha estado atemorizando a los científicos. Este patógeno, sobre todo la cepa H5N1, no ha infectado con frecuencia a los seres humanos, pero cuando lo ha hecho, ha causado la muerte del 56 por ciento de quienes se sabe que la han contraído. No ha generado una pandemia gracias a la poca capacidad que tiene de pasar con facilidad de una persona a otra, si es que lo hace.…  Seguir leyendo »

A pelican suspected to have died from H5N1 avian influenza on a beach in Peru in December. Ernesto Benavides/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

InternacionalSalud Pública, ,

As the world is just beginning to recover from the devastation of Covid-19, it is facing the possibility of a pandemic of a far more deadly pathogen.

Bird flu — known more formally as avian influenza — has long hovered on the horizons of scientists’ fears. This pathogen, especially the H5N1 strain, hasn’t often infected humans, but when it has, 56 percent of those known to have contracted it have died. Its inability to spread easily, if at all, from one person to another has kept it from causing a pandemic.

But things are changing. The virus, which has long caused outbreaks among poultry, is infecting more and more migratory birds, allowing it to spread more widely, even to various mammals, raising the risk that a new variant could spread to and among people.…  Seguir leyendo »

A makeshift hospital for Covid-19 patients in China in 2020. EPA, via Shutterstock

MundoAsia, , ,

I caught Covid for the first time in early December.

I panicked when I saw the two lines on my rapid antigen test indicating a positive result. China’s government was still clinging to its “zero Covid” approach of using mass lockdowns and testing in a vain attempt to stop the virus from spreading. Would the dreaded health workers in their head-to-toe protective white suits, who seemed to have taken over the country, come to drag me away to a grim quarantine facility?

Millions of Chinese had been living in fear of that knock on the door. So I hid in my Beijing apartment.…  Seguir leyendo »

Passengers at a Shanghai railway station during the travel rush ahead of Lunar New Year, January 16, 2023. Aly Song/Reuters

MundoAsia, , ,

When I was a little boy in rural China, one of my happiest moments was seeing my dad getting off the ship from Shanghai, carrying the load of goods he had purchased for the Lunar New Year – also known as the Spring Festival.

At that time, my dad worked for a tailor factory in suburban Shanghai, and only returned home when the Lunar New Year was around the corner.

This, after all, is the most important festival in China, with roughly 4,000 years of history.

For hundreds of millions of migrant workers across China, the 2023 Lunar New Year – happening on January 22 – will be a particularly special celebration.…  Seguir leyendo »

At the emergency department of a hospital in Chengdu, China, December 2022. Tingshu Wang / Reuters

MundoAsia, ,

China experienced monumental upheaval at the end of 2022. For three years, Chinese President Xi Jinping waged what he termed a “people’s war against COVID-19”, an uncompromising campaign to prevent the spread of COVID-19 infections that became both a nationalistic rallying cry and a symbol of Chinese pride. In that time, his government subjected citizens to intense digital surveillance, frequent harsh lockdowns, and the constant threat of being consigned to quarantine facilities in the event of a positive test. These measures did have the effect of preventing outbreaks in China of the scale that occurred in other countries, such as neighboring India or the United States.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia, ,

Las imágenes que vemos estos días de los hospitales de China nos retrotraen a los primeros meses de 2020 en España y otros países europeos. Un contraste que nos aturde, pues estos días de Navidad hemos actuado como si la pandemia fuera ya parte del pasado, solo a la espera de la declaración oficial de su finalización por la Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS). Los únicos restos que nos quedan de los momentos más duros son las mascarillas en el transporte, en algunos casos de manera muy relajada.

¿Qué está pasando? ¿Estamos de nuevo en marzo de 2020, con Wuhan al fondo y viendo cómo se acerca el virus por la Ruta de la Seda a la atemorizada Europa, afectando en primer lugar a Italia?…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalSalud Pública, ,

El 11 de marzo de 2020, el director general de la Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS), Tedros Adhanom, declaró pandemia la epidemia de coronavirus, plaga planetaria, problema de todos. Advirtió de que estaba haciendo sonar la alarma alta y clara, y que muchos países no estaban tomando las medidas adecuadas por un problema de recursos o capacidad o determinación, pero lo que no dijo Adhanom es que todos esos países las iban a tener que tomar con un problema adicional gordísimo pendiendo sobre sus cabezas: falta de tiempo. A él y a la OMS les había costado dios y ayuda no ya declarar pandemia a la epidemia de coronavirus, sino declararla emergencia internacional sanitaria mucho antes y mucho mejor, cuando el virus aún podía ser confinado en un país en vez de la humanidad entera, en todos los países.…  Seguir leyendo »

EspañaSanidad y Salud Pública,

Estamos viviendo un déjà vu.

Hace ahora tres años empezaron a llegar a Europa las primeras noticias acerca de un nuevo virus que asolaba una ciudad china de la que la mayoría no habíamos oído hablar nunca: Wuhan. En ese momento, esta fue sólo una más de las muchas noticias que se publicaron en los diarios. Pero no ocupó ninguna portada.

Viajeros embarcando en el aeropuerto internacional de Xiamen, en la provincia china de Fujian. Mark. R. Cristino/EFE/EPA

Nos tiramos de cabeza al nuevo año sin prestar demasiada atención a este asunto. Había otros que parecían más importantes.

Pero pasaron las semanas y, aunque seguían llegando noticias de cómo se propagaba la nueva enfermedad, la Covid seguía sin ser motivo de preocupación.…  Seguir leyendo »

Long lockdowns, tough learning conditions and family separations have made inequality worse for China’s children and teenagers © FT montage: Getty Images/VCG/AFP

MundoAsia, , , ,

In late September, Tashi, a student in a rural village of fewer than 100 people in south-eastern Tibet, returned to school after a six-week lockdown.

The 15-year-old’s grades had deteriorated markedly after weeks of trying to take classes on a smartphone with patchy internet in a crowded house while being cared for by ageing grandparents. His parents were 750km away in Lhasa, the capital, working.

“It was very difficult to concentrate during the lockdown. My three younger siblings were also taking classes in a noisy house”, he says, sitting next to baskets of dried fungi and herbal medicines, which are his village’s main trade.…  Seguir leyendo »