News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) takes a hit of about $270 million in the Obama administration's proposed fiscal year 2014 budget, including significant cuts to biodefense and emergency preparedness programs, officials revealed today.

(CIDRAP News) – In a new study, Chinese hospital staffers who wore N95 respirators all the time enjoyed significantly lower rates of clinical respiratory illnesses (CRIs) than workers who wore surgical masks or used N95s only for high-risk procedures.

The world needs much better influenza vaccines, but the quest for them faces a formidable barrier: overconfidence about the effectiveness of existing influenza vaccines.

(CIDRAP News) – The US government announced a total of $971 million in health emergency preparedness grants to states and territories yesterday, including $619 million for public health departments and $352 million for healthcare systems.

(CIDRAP News) – A review of several after-action pandemic assessments released today shows that earlier investments in emergency preparedness were helpful, but serious gaps such as low flu vaccination rates in minority groups and continued erosion of public health infrastructure could undermine response to the next national health emergency.

(CIDRAP News) – A new study suggests that about half of essential workers, such as police and emergency medical personnel, might be unwilling to work during a serious pandemic. Meanwhile, another study indicates that it's common for employees in private industry to work while sick with flu-like symptoms.

Both studies were published on Sep 25 in an early online edition of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.