Pandemic Influenza

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) yesterday announced it was providing states, US territories, and four metropolitan areas with $896.7 million in public health preparedness funding, with $175 million of the total earmarked for pandemic planning.

Preparedness grantsThe bulk of the money is allocated toward Public Health Emergency Cooperative Agreements, which public health departments use to build capacity.

(CIDRAP News) – The White House Homeland Security Council today released a 1-year update on the federal government's pandemic influenza preparedness strategy, reporting that it has met 86% of the objectives it set for itself a year ago.

(CIDRAP News) – Scientists have hoped that disabling the body's destructive immune-system overreaction to the H5N1 avian influenza virus, known as "cytokine storm," could lead to new lifesaving treatments, but according to a new study, trials testing the strategy didn't protect mice infected with the disease.

(CIDRAP News) – This year's round of federal grants to states to help healthcare facilities prepare for public health emergencies totals $430 million, down from $450 million last year, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced recently.

(CIDRAP News) – Health officials in Perth, Australia, last week advised parents to seek medical care quickly for young children with respiratory symptoms, after three children under age 5 died of pneumonia as a complication of "mild" influenza A infections.

(CIDRAP News) – Only 27% of Americans describe themselves as concerned about avian influenza, down from 35% last year, according to a national survey released this week.

In an Associated Press–Ipsos Public Affairs poll released on Jul 2, 41% of respondents said they were not concerned about avian flu, an increase from 31% last year. Another 34%—the same as last year—said they were moderately concerned.

Editor's note: This story was revised July 9, 2007, to make clear that plans call for the pandemic hotline model to be made freely available to anyone interested, not marketed as a commercial product. Some statements in the original version implied that the model would be marketed commercially.

(CIDRAP News) – The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued two reports that address avian and pandemic influenza planning last week, one examining how well the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is prepared to respond to avian flu outbreaks and the other assessing efforts by US and international agencies to help vulnerable countries.

(CIDRAP News) – Limited supplies of prepandemic influenza vaccine may prevent more illness cases overall if they are administered to more people in lower-than-recommended doses, University of Hong Kong researchers contend in a study published this month in Public Library of Science (PLoS) Medicine.

– TORONTO (CIDRAP News) – Scientists are uncovering naturally occurring resistance in influenza to the antiviral drugs that can prevent or treat it, potentially complicating plans by international authorities and many countries to build large drug stockpiles as a hedge against a pandemic.