Pandemic Influenza

(CIDRAP News) – The Asian Development Bank estimated this week that an influenza pandemic in Asia could kill 3 million people and possibly trigger a world recession, as the World Health Organization (WHO) geared up for a major conference on global strategy for limiting the pandemic threat.

(CIDRAP News) – In the event of an influenza pandemic, medical and public health personnel and workers who make critical vaccines and drugs would have first call on scarce doses of vaccine, under the pandemic plan released by the federal government yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – US health officials focused largely on expanding supplies of vaccines and antiviral drugs today as they rolled out a lengthy plan for responding to a feared influenza pandemic that could kill an estimated 1.9 million Americans under worst-case assumptions.

Editor's Note: This is an expanded version of a story published earlier today ().

(CIDRAP News) – President George W. Bush today proposed $7.1 billion in spending to prepare for an influenza pandemic, including $5 billion for vaccines and drugs, as his administration released an outline of its preparedness strategy.

(CIDRAP News) – Two major organizations of infectious disease experts today warned the public against hoarding oseltamivir (Tamiflu), saying the threat of an influenza pandemic is not high enough to warrant it.

(CIDRAP News) – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which recently reconstructed the 1918 pandemic influenza virus for research purposes, has classified the virus as a "select agent," imposing special rules on groups that handle it.

(CIDRAP News) – A not-yet-released version of the Bush administration's plan for dealing with an influenza pandemic predicts that such an event could exact an enormous toll in life and wealth, according to recent newspaper reports.

(CIDRAP News) – Avian influenza and the threat of a flu pandemic were in the spotlight in Washington, DC, today as officials from 80 nations met to discuss the situation and President Bush was to meet with manufacturers of flu vaccines and drugs.

(CIDRAP News) – Scientists today reported findings that may help explain what made the 1918 pandemic influenza virus so deadly and that reveal similarities between that virus and the H5N1 avian influenza virus now circulating in Asia.

(CIDRAP News) – The United States may need to quarantine regions of the country if localized outbreaks of a pandemic flu occur, US President George Bush said today during a press conference in Washington, DC.

Bush suggested expanding presidential power over state-run National Guard operations to implement such quarantines in the event of a pandemic.