News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – With the health of small businesses at stake in fragile economic times, federal officials and one of the nation's top business groups pushed new efforts this week to help companies prepare for the next wave of the H1N1 pandemic influenza.

(CIDRAP News) – Federal officials today released new guidance to help businesses prepare for an expected resurgence of novel H1N1 activity during the upcoming influenza season, a document that clarifies how long sick workers should stay home and suggests ways to keep employees safe and business disruptions at a minimum.

(CIDRAP News) – Federal officials recommended today that schools should not close down during novel H1N1 influenza outbreaks, though they emphasized that the advice is a guideline and that decisions should be made based on local conditions.

(CIDRAP News) – The World Health Organization's (WHO's) pandemic declaration today isn't a surprise and won't affect the United States' response to the spread of the novel flu virus, which is already aggressive, officials from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today.

(CIDRAP News) – Top US officials responsible for managing the nation's response to the swine influenza outbreak today faced increasing pressure to implement more aggressive measures at the Mexico border and reveal more details about the status of a vaccine.

(CIDRAP News) – Federal officials, speaking at a White House briefing on the swine influenza outbreak today, said the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is declaring a public health emergency, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed 9 more human cases.

(CIDRAP News) – A new report from the University of Minnesota warns that an influenza pandemic could disrupt the coal industry, thereby endangering the nation's significantly coal-dependent electric power system and everything that depends on it.

(CIDRAP News) – Officials from several agencies recently converged on Miami's international airport to take part in a full-scale exercise of the federal government's risk-based strategy to slow the spread of a future pandemic influenza virus across US borders.