With the world seemingly journeyed through the WHO declared H1N1 flu pandemic relatively unscathed, at least judging from the outcomes recounted so far with winter in the northern hemisphere still prevailing, murmurs and disquiet has started to surface in various fonts.

 

 

 

One of the questions swirling around was whether the UN agency trumped up the situation a little too aggressively? Much of the world resources in healthcare have been channeled to ensuring national & global preparedness. More evidence has now emerged that the H1N1 virus is not a genuine threat to public health, and this was allegedly known as early as April 2009!

In Europe, the Representatives of the WHO and the European pharmaceutical industry gathered on 26-Jan-2010 to face vocal skeptics from the Council of Europe and the press on whether they had mishandled an outbreak of influenza last summer.
 

An interim review will be presented during the next World Health Assembly scheduled for May 2010 in Geneva. Back at national level, millions of doses of H1N1 vaccines have been ordered and understandably, many of which have neither been drawn down nor committed for public use. Reportedly, France committed 90 million doses of the vaccines for her 60 million population. It’s little wonder that the French government is now trying to sell off the excesses to other countries. Looking back, guess many people will form different opinion how should the "anticipated crisis" be managed. It’s always wiser in retrospect with the benefits of new evidence perspectivs of the hind sights, impolite criticisms are aplenty now, eg: -

 

That being said and done, had H1N1 virus indeed mutated to virulent strains and wreaked havoc, the consequences would have been unthinkable and may be - just may be absolutely - the world we live in now would have been a much different place....!