Body armour could be a ‘last-resort’ for the NHS

By Andrew StansfieldPublished December 04, 2017 09:00:30UK health officials are urging all the world’s countries to develop their own versions of body armour to protect against a pandemic.
Speaking at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Sydney on Tuesday, Dr Peter Farrar, head of health protection at the World Health Organisation (WHO), said there were no barriers to developing these types of equipment.
“What we are asking all countries to do is to look at whether they can develop and deploy these kinds of protective equipment,” he said.
“The question is, is it cost effective?
Is it effective against other forms of threat?
And I think the answer to that is no.”
But it is a last resort and it’s a tool that’s important for our own healthcare system and it is the last resort we have.
“Farrar said it was time for governments to get serious about developing a national body armour programme.”
This is an urgent challenge that we need to address now,” he told the meeting.”
And it will require a lot of effort and it will take time to build, but it is an important first step.”FARRAR said the body armour had to be more than just a shield, but was a weapon in its own right.”
It is a weapon.
It is not just a protective measure,” he explained.”
There are many different forms of protective measures that people can wear.
“So it is not an armour.
It’s not just the shield that is a protective thing.
It has to be used effectively.”
In a bid to protect the body from pandemic-caused infection, the WHO has warned that people in areas with poor hygiene and access to contaminated water are more likely to be infected.
It also urged countries to use better measures to reduce the spread of disease and to protect health workers.
But the WHO also warned that the equipment could become a tool for terrorists, and the equipment manufacturers are likely to see its use as an incentive for more mass production.
“As we move from a pandemics to a pandics, the supply chain becomes a real risk,” Farrars said.
“This means we have to think about how we protect people.”
We have to look into the risks of making the equipment that is being produced.
But we have seen that, in some cases, it works.