H1N1 Pandemics

Introduction

Humanity has recurrently been facing pandemics. A pandemic is an epidemic, an outbreak of an infectious disease that spreads worldwide or at least across a large region. Some of the most known events have been the Spanish flu (at the beginning of the 20th century) or the H1N1 pandemics (at the beginning of the 21st century). It can already be noted that pandemics which were more localized in the past have now a world scope and world impact due to the travelling’s international intensity. The most recent pandemics that the world is facing is Ebola, which started in Western Africa, impacts heavily three countries, and leads to a number of countries shutting down their borders to nationals or visitors originating from the impacted

The devastating effect of the disease will not only concern labor availability and capacity. Farmers abandoned their farms located in the epicenter of the disease and with the rest of the population fled to areas that do not have the disease (many shops have been forced to close as part of the quarantine measures). There will be consequences of this exodus in the mid-term. The planting season is / will start soon; the lack of planting will create food shortage and pressure on food prices, which are likely to increase and to generate inflation and pressure on the currency as well as shortage of foreign

The first Ebola case is believed to be the death of a 2 year old boy in Guinea in December 2013.

In March 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) was officially notified of a rapidly evolving outbreak of Ebola. In August 2013, WHO declared the epidemic a “public health emergency of international concern under the International Health Regulation (under Article 12 of the International Healthcare Regulation 2005 – which has also been used in 2009for the pandemic of H1N1 influenza).

In July 2014, the members of the United Nations Security Council expressed their “deep concern over the current outbreak of the Ebola virus in some countries in West Africa”.

On September 18, 2014, after a meeting called “historic” by the Secretary General, the Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 2177 “determining that the unprecedented extent of the Ebola outbreak in Africa constitutes a threat to international peace and security”. The Council recognized the central role of WHO and urged Member States to implement the temporary recommendations issued by the WHO Director