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WHO 2017
CONTENTS
I. INTRODUCTION
II. OVERVIEW
A. COMMITTEE’S BACKGROUND
B. ACHIEVEMENTS
III. MOSQUITO-TRANSMITTED DISEASE CRISIS IN
LATIN AMERICA
A. BACKGROUND
B. CURRENT SITUATION
IV. POSSIBLE SOLUTION
ANNEX I: LIST OF COUNTRIES
ANNEX II: INFORMATION ABOUT COUNTRIES
ANNEX III: REFERENCES
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I. INTRODUCTION
Dear delegates of the World Health Organization,
During this debate, you, as representatives of a country, will be dealing with a topic of major
importance: Mosquito-transmitted disease crisis in Latin America. The debate will require from certain
skills such as diplomacy, your power of analysis, your innovative ideas and above all, your willingness
to reach a viable resolution to the topic. We, as your staff, encourage you to use all your abilities
throughout the debate, being sure that your high standards and your maturity during the discussion of
these issues will enhance the outcome of our committee.
Welcome to the Olinca Model United Nations (OLINMUN) 2017.
Yours sincerely,
Chiara Gómez Blanno
Head of Committee of WHO
Andrés Figueroa Alcaraz Pablo de la Peña González
Chair of WHO Moderator of WHO
María Delgado Delgado
Deputy Chair of WHO
NOTE: We urge you to carefully read this piece, as it may be a very helpful tool and source of
general information for your topic. We urge delegates to read the delegate handbook, as the
committee will work following the rules that are mentioned and any delegation not following
them will be sanctioned with a warning.
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II. OVERVIEW
Mosquito borne diseases in Latin
America, such as dengue, Zika
and chikungunya, have caught the
attention of the World Health
Organization since 2014. Due to
this (among other affairs), WHO
has coordinated the Department of
Control of Neglected Tropical
Diseases, in charge of policies and
strategies to enhance global
access to interventions for the
prevention, control, elimination and
eradication of neglected tropical
diseases, including some zoonotic
diseases. WHO as well, supports
the Member States to expand
access to prevention, diagnosis,
treatment and care interventions
for all those in need, according to
the resolutions established with the
World Health Assembly.
Today, WHO aims to prioritize the
public health needs of poor and
marginalized populations and
provide technical and strategic
guidance in key areas, principally
“donated medicines”.
The World Health Organization
delivers interventions through
appropriate technology at
sustainable cost and with the help
of international partners, supports
Member States in the coordination
and integration of national control
programs with sectors such as
education, agriculture and
veterinary public health.
A) Committee’s Background:
The World Health Organization
(WHO) is a specialized agency of the
United Nations that is concerned with
international public health. It was
established on 7 April 1948,
headquartered in Geneva,
Switzerland.
WHO is a member of the United
Nations Development Group. Its
predecessor, the Health Organization,
was an agency of the League of
Nations.
The constitution of the World Health
Organization had been signed by 61
countries on 22 July 1946, with the
first meeting of the World Health
Assembly finishing on 24 July 1948. It
incorporated the International Office
d'hygiène publique and the League of
Nations Health Organization.
Since its creation, it has played a
leading role in the eradication of
smallpox. Its current priorities include
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communicable diseases -in particular
HIV/AIDS, Ebola, malaria and
tuberculosis- and the mitigation of the
effects of non-communicable
diseases; sexual and reproductive
health, development, and aging;
nutrition, food security and healthy
eating; occupational health;
substance abuse; and driving the
development of reporting,
publications, and networking.
WHO is responsible for the World
Health Report, a leading international
publication on health, the worldwide
World Health Survey, and World
Health Day (7 April of every year).
The head of WHO fulfills the following
objectives as defined in its
Constitution: to act as the directing
and coordinating authority on
international health work; to establish
and maintain effective collaboration
with the United Nations, specialized
agencies, governmental health
administrations, professional groups
and such other organizations as may
be deemed appropriate; to assist
Governments, upon request, in
strengthening health services; to
furnish appropriate technical
assistance and, in emergencies,
necessary aid upon the request or
acceptance of Governments; to
provide or assist in providing, upon
the request of the United Nations,
health services and facilities to
special groups, such as the peoples
of trust territories; to establish and
maintain such administrative and
technical services as may be
required, including epidemiological
and statistical services; to stimulate
and advance work to eradicate
epidemic, endemic and other
diseases
B) Achievements:
WHO’s support to different
governments in all aspects of health
has led to many historic
achievements: sustained control of
communicable diseases including
eradication of malaria, controlling
lymphatic filariasis and many vaccine
preventable diseases, such as polio.
The march to elimination of
Lymphatic Filariasis, a mosquito-
borne disease, is significant as it was
once endemic in 25 islands. With
WHO’s assistance and suitable
measures by the government such as
systematic case detection, treatment
and mosquito control, as well as the
implementation of Mass Drug
Administration (MDA) in 2004,
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microfilaria rate declined from 18.5%
in 1951 to zero by 2009.
III. MOSQUITO-
TRANSMITTED DISEASE
CRISIS IN LATIN AMERICA
A) Background:
Aedes mosquitoes are insects
abundant in Latin America, but they
are present all around the world as
well. The mosquito transmits three
borne diseases: dengue, chikungunya
and yellow fever, across tropical and
subtropical regions around the world.
It has come to the attention of the
World Health Organization the
amount of Zika, Chinkungunya and
yellow fever cases that had sprouted
around the world, for the past two
years.
These cases are not only based on
the transmission of the diseases,
causing
their principal symptoms (such as
headache, muscle and joint pain, mild
fever and rash) but also on the
thousands of deaths and born babies
with malformations because of
pregnant women infected. Brazil,
Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala,
Mexico and Venezuela are some of
the countries who have experienced
the mosquito outbreaks for the past
three years. These diseases
extended from Africa (1947) to East
Asia, arriving later to Latin America.
B) Current Situation:
Nowadays Northern and Central
America, as well as East Asia are
considered to be potential outbreak
regions. One specific area to be
considered of higher risk is Puerto
Rico. In these regions, the spread of
Aedes mosquitoes has been a
principal cause of hospitalization and
death of thousands of children and
only these regions have presented
around 56,000 severe cases for the
past three years.
Since 2014 the World Health
Organization keeps convening the
Emergency Committee under the
International Health Regulations in
order to talk about this topic and take
on possible measures to control the
problem. One of the most important
meetings was regarding the Olympic
Games that took place on Brazil,
2016, as it is one of the potential
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outbreak areas. WHO was able to
take certain measures of prevention
so that the event could conclude in an
adequate and risk-free way.
Two weeks after the declaration of a
public health emergency of
international concern, WHO launched
the global Strategic Response
Framework and Joint Operations Plan
against Zika virus outbreaks (which
have been more than the other
viruses). The strategy was initially
developed with input from over 30
operational partners, and focused on
coordinating activities across three
core areas: surveillance, response
and research. The global response to
Zika is coordinated from WHO
headquarters in Geneva through the
Zika incident-management structure
(IMS), which enables a dedicated
incident manager to draw on
expertise and resources from across
the Organization. The IMS was
replicated at regional level.
WHO is aware that right now or at
least for the next decade, this
situation cannot be completely
eradicated but indeed controlled so
that risk of infection becomes smaller.
The committee knows that the world
is facing nature and genetic affairs,
so it is hard to find (as a massive
solution) what could help alleviate the
newly introduced chikungunya, zika
and dengue virus as potentially lethal
mosquito-borne diseases.
IV. POSSIBLE SOLUTION
A very important contributor to the
virus spread is the fact that
mosquitoes that are not infected with
these viruses can bite any person
who has it and instantly become
carriers that will later on spread it.
Hence, it is important that all
governments who had seen their
country experience an outbreak, take
certain measures and cautions with
the treatment of the people infected,
as it foments the virus spread and
can be merely lethal.
The World Health Organization invites
affected countries to participate in the
Emergency Committee meetings as
well as to take action in governmental
and national levels to avoid the Aedes
mosquitoes spread and infections, by
stating and regulating the mandatory
use of home preventions and
cautions, to start avoiding this threat.
Also, WHO advices the affected
countries to attend and invest on the
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scientist community that may help
attacking the virus from its core, as
well as the crucial investment on
caution and prevention education for
the population of regions where
outbreaks occur.
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ANNEX I: LIST OF COUNTRIES
1. Argentina
2. Bahamas
3. Belize
4. Bolivia
5. Brazil
6. Paraguay
7. Canada
8. Costa Rica
9. Cuba
10. Colombia
11. Guatemala
12. France
13. Germany
14. India
15. Indonesia
16. Italy
17. Dominican Republic
18. Mexico
19. Myanmar
20. Peru
21. Philippines
22. Thailand
23. United States of America
24. Venezuela
25. Chile
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ANNEX II: INFORMATION ABOUT THE COUNTRIES
Brazil:
In Brazil, the most common of all viruses is Zika. Clusters of cases of acute illness have been
reported from various regions since late 2014, and in April 2015, Zika virus was identified as the
etiologic agent. In May 2015, the Brazilian Ministry of Health recognized circulation of Zika virus in
Brazil. We report epidemiologic findings for an ongoing outbreak of acute illness in the population of
Salvador, the third largest city in Brazil. Brazil's Zika outbreak, which grew explosively after the virus
first appeared in the country a year ago, appears to have peaked, with fewer new infections and
cases of birth defects, new research suggests. Zika cases hit a high of nearly 8,000 suspected new
infections in Brazil in March and have declined steadily since then to fewer than 200 a week.
United States of America:
Local mosquito-borne Zika virus transmission has been reported in the continental United States,
many areas in the United States have the type of mosquitoes that can become infected with and
spread Zika, chikungunya, and dengue viruses. Recent outbreaks in the continental United States of
chikungunya and dengue have been relatively small and limited to a small area, but areas with past
outbreaks of chikungunya and dengue are considered at higher risk for Zika. These include U.S.
territories like Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Guam. Local outbreaks have also been
reported in parts of Hawaii, Florida, and Texas.
Mexico:
Mexico’s most present virus since 2000 until today is dengue. The number of cases of dengue was
increasing rapidly between 2000 and 2006. Indeed, numbers continued to rise until 2013 when more
than 50,000 cases were reported for the year (an average of more than 4000/month). One possible,
at least partial, explanation may be that changes in climate have allowed dengue mosquitoes to thrive
in environments where they were previously scarce. People in such areas are unprepared for
dengue; they may not have instituted prevention programs, and may have been slow to receive
correct diagnosis. The migration of people affected by dengue from one region to another may also
have helped the disease spread, provided there were host mosquitoes in the destination region.
The good news is that the number of dengue cases in Mexico in 2014 has fallen from its 2013 level
by about 50%, so the dengue epidemic may finally be on the wane. As of 24 November 2014, 28,109
cases had been reported for the year, an average nationwide rate of 23.47 cases/100,000 people.
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Mexico’s dengue prevention programs were not very successful when the problem became bigger,
but the programs did become better after the first decade.
Costa Rica:
Chikungunya cases have increased 20-fold since last year when the virus first arrived in Costa Rica.
While chikungunya is rarely fatal, patients can experience pain in their joints for up to a year after
contracting the virus. A new study released in the scientific journal “Neurology” last month also
showed that those infected with chikungunya were more likely to later develop encephalitis, a
potentially fatal brain inflammation. Costa Rica has had 3,700 cases of chikungunya in 2015, and
more than half of these infections occurred in the last two months.
According to the Health Ministry, the number of people infected with dengue has also increased this
year, with 14,322 confirmed cases. Nearly 75 percent of these infections occurred in Guanacaste and
Puntarenas. While the virus usually lurks in highly populated areas, it has also now spread into more
rural zones. At one point in September, the entire 300-person village of Arado in Guanacaste was
reportedly infected with dengue. Dengue fever has long been common in Costa Rica’s coastal
regions, but Health Ministry officials are concerned about the spike in infections. In 2013, nearly
50,000 people in Costa Rica were infected with dengue, an all-time record. The next year, the
number of cases dropped significantly. Since dengue is a cyclical disease, the Health Ministry says
the slight increase this year could signify the beginning of another spike.
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ANNEX III: REFERENCES
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs327/en/
http://www.who.int/topics/zika/en/
http://www.who.int/emergencies/zika-virus/mediacentre/press-releases/en/
https://www.cdc.gov/zika/geo/active-countries.html
http://www.who.int/emergencies/zika-virus-tmp/response-zika-2017.pdf?ua=1
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3516305/
http://www.who.int/topics/dengue/en/
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