WHO epidemic alert - We need to strengthen our defences

THE warning from the World Health Organisation that infectious diseases are spreading faster than ever before must be a cause for concern.

In its annual report the WHO also warns new diseases are emerging at the “historically unprecedented” rate of one a year.

The report suggests that because 2.1 billion people use airlines each year, there is a high risk of a big epidemic such as Aids, Sars, bird flu or ebola fever.

This is an unavoidable risk of the modern world but that does not mean we cannot strengthen our defences and make every effort to try to keep these modern plagues at bay. The WHO also warns that a flu pandemic could affect more than 1.5 billion people or 25% of the world’s population. This would have unimaginable social and economic consequences.

One of the processes we could initiate is that anyone applying for Irish citizenship or refugee status should be subject to a rigorous health check.