It's summertime in America, Major League Baseball is about to celebrate its annual All-Star Gameand we are experiencing influenza activity throughout the world, including right here in North America. In my lifetime, a lineup featuring influenza and summer in this country is simply unprecedented, though hardly unexpected.
(CIDRAP News) Responding to lobbying by the Obama administration and public health advocates, Congress last week approved $7.65 billion for battling pandemic influenza, more than three times what the House and Senate had earlier proposed.
(CIDRAP News) On the heels of yesterday's pandemic declaration by the World Health Organization (WHO), the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today urged businesses to review their pandemic plans to make sure they're flexible enough to respond to a moderate or severe pandemic.
By raising its pandemic alert level to phase 6 today, The World Health Organization (WHO) has put every continent, country, organization, and individual on official notice. The critical wake-up call has sounded; no more pressing the pause button.
The irony is hard to miss. Much is being discussed and published about the "lessons learned" from the 2009 pandemic of the novel H1N1 influenza. And I expect the World Health Organization (WHO) will (as I did in my last column) finally call it a pandemic any moment now, based on extensive and growing transmission of the novel influenza virus in Australia and Europe.
No, the World Health Organization (WHO) has not declared the novel H1N1 (swine) influenza outbreak a pandemic. It should. And it may. But your next steps need not depend on the WHO raising the pandemic alert level to phase 6. In fact, they shouldn't depend on it.
As the novel H1N1 influenza virus (aka the "swine flu") spreads to more countries and sickens more people, the question invariably arises, when will the World Health Organization (WHO) change the pandemic alert level to phase 6?
The media may have deflected their focused attention away from the novel H1N1 influenza virus (what they've called swine flu) for the moment, but I know you're still on high alert, and with good reason.
After seeing the pandemic alert level sit at phase 3 for years, suddenly witnessing the World Health Organization (WHO) accelerate from phase 3 to phase 5 in mere days feels terribly unnerving. Unfortunately, it's the nature of the beastliterally.
Big news today: The World Health Organization (WHO) ended days of speculation and finally bumped the pandemic alert level to phase 4. What's more, it did so after releasing revamped definitions and meanings yesterday.
