Experts call for international cooperation against influenza at conference

HAIKOU -- Experts have urged for international cooperation to combat influenza and respiratory infectious diseases during a conference held in Hainan, the southern Chinese island province.

Under the theme of "Integrated Prevention and Control From Influenza to Respiratory Infectious Diseases," the 2024 World Influenza Conference concluded on Sunday in Boao, a coastal town in Hainan.

The two-day event gathered about 100 influenza prevention and control experts and public health professionals from home and abroad.

They exchanged and shared advanced global prevention and control technologies to enhance pandemic response capacity, aiming to build international consensus on influenza's dangers and the critical importance of its prevention and control.

According to the conference, China's influenza monitoring system has become one of the most extensive and effective active monitoring systems of infectious diseases in the world. It can grasp the level of influenza activity and epidemic trends in real time and provide the scientific basis for global reagent research and development, vaccine selection and drug use.

Li Bin, deputy head of the National Health Commission and president of the Chinese Preventive Medicine Association, said China has been actively participating in global influenza prevention and control efforts. This includes timely reporting of epidemics, sharing virus strains, and supporting capacity-building in developing countries for influenza prevention and control.

Participants also pointed out that the current global influenza prevention and control work still faces many challenges posed by global climate change, urbanization, intensification of animal husbandry and easier cross-border trade.

Meanwhile, the mutation and recombination of influenza viruses continue around the world, and human infection with animal-derived influenza outbreaks also occurs from time to time, meaning that the risk of influenza pandemics always exists.

"We all know that if we are not able to work together and collaboratively, the virus will win, so we need to stay together," said Sylvie Briand, Executive Head of the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board secretariat co-convened by the World Health Organization and the World Bank.

Sun Yang, deputy director of the National Disease Control and Prevention Administration, said that to prevent and deal with pandemics caused by influenza and other respiratory infectious diseases, China will upgrade the online direct reporting system of infectious diseases, strengthen the whole-process risk monitoring from people to the environment and animals, and improve the ability to identify pathogens.

Sun said during the event that China will strengthen cooperation with the World Health Organization and conduct extensive international exchanges to share practices in monitoring, early warning and emergency preparedness.

Experts at the conference emphasized that preventing and controlling influenza and other respiratory infectious diseases is a long-term and arduous task. They called for closer collaboration between governments and all sectors of society to raise public awareness of influenza dangers further, develop more advanced and affordable vaccines and medicines, and shorten the preparation time for prevention and control measures as much as possible.