Delay in Translation of Bird Flu Warning Raises Fears
Bad enough we have to deal with the possibility of a global pandemic. Now we need to worry that translations of published warnings aren't reaching the World Health Organization for as long as three months, according to the current issue of Nature Magazine (Subscription required). Why doesn't the World Health Organization or the US government use a translation service for relevant multilanguage health publications?
Nature reports that translation of news of a fatal outbreak of respiratory disease in northeastern Brazil this year from the international ProMED mailing list, a service for disseminating information about outbreaks, didn't reach the World Health Organization for three months. The outbreak was eventually proven not to be bird flu, and the communications breakdown was blamed on a decentralization of Brazil's health-monitoring chain of command, a problem that has also been blamed for Indonesia's poor response to the avian-flu outbreak.
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