Pandemic Influenza

(CIDRAP News) – This year's report card from Trust for America's Health (TFAH) on state and national public health emergency preparedness shows some signs of progress along with major gaps, sagging funding, and worry that the current economic crisis will bring deeper spending cuts.

Editor's Note: CIDRAP's Public Health Practices online database showcases peer-reviewed practices, including useful tools to help others with their planning. This article is one of a series exploring the development of these practices. We hope that describing the process and context of these practices enhances pandemic planning.

(CIDRAP News) – Hospital workers who followed official infection control guidelines for pandemic influenza for 1 day used 10 times as many gloves as usual, generated three times as much clinical waste, and found that many tasks took longer than normal, according to a new report.

(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) – A Canadian study raises questions about the value of formal "fit testing" for the respirators worn by healthcare workers to protect them from airborne pathogens, suggesting that it does little good for workers who don't routinely wear the devices.

(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.

(CIDRAP News) – The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has listed public health emergency preparedness and food safety as two of 13 "urgent issues" that will need attention from President-elect Barack Obama and the new Congress next year.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today hosted an online conversation among experts, government officials, and members of the public that touched on emerging issues in pandemic planning, such as anticipating supply chain interruptions and keeping the momentum going during tough economic times.

– WASHINGTON, DC (CIDRAP News) – Health officials worldwide are becoming increasingly concerned about influenza viruses' resistance to antiviral drugs, which can shut down a flu infection or mitigate symptoms. Flu antivirals are vital for reducing severe illness and death in average flu seasons and could be essential bulwarks against an influenza pandemic if one began.

(CIDRAP News) – A group of international donors who met yesterday in the final session of an avian influenza conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, pledged more support for avian and pandemic flu preparedness and prevention, led by $320 million from the United States.