International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
B. Key messages for pandemics
Key messages for pandemics Please note that the foundation messages are contained in Key Messages for All-Hazards Household and Family Disaster Planning. Separate messages are also available for earthquakes, floods, pandemics, tropical cyclones, and wildfires. A pandemic is an epidemic of infectious disease that spreads through human populations across a large region, multiple continents or even worldwide. Pandemics are caused by diseases that are able to infect humans and can spread quite easily. Pandemics become disasters when they are associated with enormous numbers of deaths, as well as illness. Pandemics are caused by contamination hazards. Examples are: • airborne (such as flu, typhus, tuberculosis, smallpox, measles, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)) • conveyed by body fluids (such as polio or HIV) • water borne (cholera, e. coli, dysentery) • food borne (such as salmonella, e. coli, listeria, hepatitis) • soil borne (such as anthrax) • vector borne (transmitted from animals to humans (such as the H5N1 avian flu virus, malaria, dengue or letospira). In the past, pandemics have included cholera, smallpox, leprosy, measles, polio and yellow fever. Pandemics can be prevented through a variety of measures, such as: • public practice of good hygiene and sanitation • access to clean water • hand washing • vaccination • proactive surveillance • vector control. HIV – the virus that causes AIDS – is a current pandemic. By 2009 AIDS had killed and estimated 30 million people, and it continues to kill almost two million people annually (UNAIDS, Global Factsheet, 2010). Concerns exist about possible future pandemics include viral hemorrhagic fevers, antibiotic resistance in ‘superbugs’ such as MRSA, and infections such as SARS and H5N1 avian influenza.
AsseSs AND Plan KEY MESSAGES
Context-specific details
Protect sources of clean water Vaccinate children against killer diseases
• • • • •
Identify pandemic threats
• Think about your household as well as your neighbourhood and community.
Maintain vaccination cards for babies and children. Keep vaccinations up to date. Participate in vaccination campaigns Vaccinate against polio, diphtheria and measles. Do not re-use needles.
43
