YMCA Youth & Government Model United Nations Economic and Social Council TOPIC PREPARATION GUIDE E/15/TPG/5 Distr.: General March 2015 Original: English Fifth Committee on Assistance During Outbreaks of Disease Section 1 Topic Background 1.1 According to the World Health Organization (WHO), an “infectious disease” is an infection “caused by pathogenic microorganisms, such as bacteria, viruses, parasites or fungi; the diseases can be spread, directly or indirectly, from one person to another” i. When an infectious disease occurs in an area at a significantly higher rate than normal, it is considered a disease outbreak. If the outbreak expands to other countries, it becomes a pandemic. 1.2 Pandemics put severe strains on healthcare systems and weaken economies and security systems through the loss of workers in critical facilities such as electrical plants. Without international assistance, developing countries are especially unprepared to respond to a pandemic within their borders and keep it from spreading to the rest of the world.ii 1.3 The main concern is that once a virulent virus infects one quarter of a population, even the developed world could not stop it, and the resulting death tolls would be extreme. For example, if a virus infected 25 percent of the global population and killed two percent of the population, death tolls would be more than 35 million worldwide 1.4 Infectious diseases of international note include: HIV/Aids, Malaria, Tuberculosis, Influenza, as well as a variety of infectious diseases. Communicable diseases thrive in areas with poor sanitation and disproportionately kill the young and those who are weakened by age or poor nutrition. 1.5 Any infectious disease could potentially become a pandemic however, infectious diseases vary widely in the ease with which they can be transmitted from person to person and in their lethality to their victims. Some diseases, like influenza are highly contagious, while others such as tuberculosis are more difficult to contract. 1.6 Within the past several decades, thirty previously unknown serious diseases have emerged, including HIV/AIDS, Ebola, Marburg fever, hepatitis C, SARS, and Hanta virus. In addition to these new concerns, older diseases, including hepatitis B and C, measles, malaria, and tuberculosis, are problematic for the global community.iii E/15/TPG/5 Section 2 Past International Action 2.1 In 2003, China, Hong Kong, and other parts of East Asia were strongly affected by the avian flu (H5N1). At a result, they implemented containment plans that consisted of killing chickens infected with the virus, quarantining infected individuals, and stockpiling vaccines. By 2009, Hong Kong had “20 million courses of Tamiflu [H5N1 vaccine] -- three times its population.” In addition, it established procedures for transforming holiday camps on the borders to isolation wards to help the health care system cope with a sudden increase in patients. 35 Due to such measures in East Asia, the countries that have been most affected by H5N1 are those, like Cambodia, that have few resources and those, like Egypt, experiencing severe social and political dislocation.iv 2.2 In 2009 the H1N1 Swine Flu outbreak was labeled a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). Modern travel allowed H1N1 to spread faster than any infectious disease to date making containment nearly impossible. 2.3 In 2012, a new illness with the potential to become a pandemic was discovered in Saudi Arabia. Called Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome (MERS), it is related to severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), which in 2003, infected at least 8,000 people and killed 800. Between September 2012 and August 2013, MERS infected 108 people from at least eight countries and killed 50 of them.v MERS is problematic because “[s]cientists do not know where it came from, where the virus exists in nature, why it has appeared now, how people are being exposed to it, or whether it is becoming more contagious and could erupt into a much larger outbreak, as SARS did.”vi Section 3 Guiding Questions • • • • 2 What preventative measures can be put in place to increase global health and reduce the risk of disease outbreaks? How should politicians, pharmaceutical companies, and NGOs react when faced with a disease outbreak? Should they prioritize care for the affected or protection against disease spread? How can the public and private sectors cooperate to achieve their common goals of preventing disease? How does disease relate to political, economic, and social trends within countries? E/15/TPG/5 Section 4 Further Research • Boghani, Priyanka. "MSF on Ebola: “This Is the Biggest Outbreak We’ve Ever Known”." PBS. Last modified 9 Sept. 2014. Accessed 11 Sept. 2014. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/health-science-technology/ebolaoutbreak/msf-onebola-this-is-the-biggest-outbreak-weve-ever-known/. • Green, Nicole A. "Polio." KidsHealth. Last modified 1 Jan. 2014. Accessed 10 Sept. 2014. http://kidshealth.org/parent/infections/bacterial_viral/polio.html. • Nsehe, Mfonobong. "Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Pledges $50 Million To Fight Ebola In West Africa." Forbes. Last modified 10 Sept. 2014. Accessed 11 Sept. 2014. http://www.forbes.com/sites/mfonobongnsehe/2014/09/10/billmelinda-gates-foundationpledges-50-million-to-fight-ebola-in-west-africa/. • Piot, Peter, and Thomas Quinn. "Response to the AIDS Pandemic - A Global Health Model." New England Journal of Medicine. Accessed 11 Sept. 2014. http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1201533. i 153 WHO, Health Topics: Infectious Diseases [Website] ii 9 Bryan Walsh, “How to Prepare for a Pandemic,” Time Magazine, v. 173 i. 19, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1896728,00.html iii Caldwell and Williams, Seeking Security in an Insecure World, p. 77. iv World Health Organization, “Cumulative number of confirmed human cases for avian influenza A(H5N1) reported to WHO, 2003-2013,” 29 August 2013, http://www.who.int/influenza/human_animal_interface/EN_GIP_20130829CumulativeNumberH5N1cases.pdf v World Health Organization, “Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) – update,” 30 August 2013, http://www.who.int/csr/don/2013_08_30/en/index.html. vi Denise Grady, “Solving a Viral Mystery: Experts Scramble to Trace the Emergence of MERS,” New York Times, July 1, 2013, accessed at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/02/health/experts-scramble-to-trace-the-emergence-ofmers.html?hp&_r=1&. 3