A Call for ‘‘Smart Surveillance’’: A Lesson Learned from H1N1

• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Avian flu
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.664.9194; http://www.ecohealth.net/pdf/journal_pdf/Vol_6/Vol6_Iss1/ECH_6_1_Editorial_FINAL.pdf

As we adjust to life within the H1N1 pandemic, we find ourselves asking the same questions posed about the global economic crisis: ‘‘How did this happen?’ ’ ‘‘Where did this begin?’ ’ and most importantly, ‘‘Why didn’t we know this would happen?’ ’ Since the emergence of H5N1 avian flu in 1997, the USA alone has spent billions of dollars on pan-demic prevention: expanding global surveillance, strengthening Homeland Security, stockpiling the two most effective antivirals (Oseltamivir and Zanamivir), and improving vaccine production capacity. The world seemed to act, for once, with appropriate urgency: Funds from intergovernmental agencies were targeted to bolster sur-veillance in regions where evidence of human-to-human transmission (the very origins of a new pandemic) were strongest. So, we all watched eagerly as one, then another