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Briefing

The Lessons of Swine Flu

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Authors:
Ian Scoones,
Published:
2009

As the swine flu outbreak backstory seeps out, there are some vitally important lessons that can be learned. Huge investment in pandemic preparedness and contingency plans, improvements in surveillance and response systems and stockpiling of drugs and vaccines have followed recent avian influenza outbreaks.
But do we have effective global disease surveillance and control systems that can prevent a disaster?
Topics
HealthInfluenzaSwine flu
UNICEF/UNI202916/Holt
On 21 November 2015, (right) UNICEF Advocate for Children Affected by War Ishmael Beah talks with children at a centre supported by UNICEF in Juba. In late November, Beah travelled to South Sudan with UNICEF to meet with former child soldiers, along with different parties to the conflict so as to advocate for the release of child soldiers and their re-integration into their communities and families. A peace agreement was signed in August this year, but fierce fighting has continued in parts of South Sudan. Since the beginning of 2015, the situation for children has worsened, and there are now as many as 16,000 associated with armed forces or groups.

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