Public Health

(CIDRAP News) – The influential journal Foreign Affairs is adding its voice to the warnings about a potential influenza pandemic by publishing a special section on pandemics in its forthcoming July/August issue.

(CIDRAP News) – A new program to provide training in the use of informatics to enhance disease detection and other public health functions is being launched with the help of a $3.68 million grant from a private foundation, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced today.

(CIDRAP News) – Colorado's new system for tracking hospital admissions related to influenza is a potential model for measuring the burden of serious flu complications and the severity of flu seasons, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today.

(CIDRAP News) – The British magazine Nature trained a floodlight on the threat of an influenza pandemic today with a collection of 10 articles that explore the danger and possible remedies and demand a more serious global response.

"The level of current efforts is not commensurate with the threat we face," the editors write. "The time for diplomacy and denial is over. It is time for advocacy and action."

(CIDRAP News) – Member countries of the World Health Organization (WHO) yesterday approved the first major revision of the WHO's rules to prevent the international spread of diseases in decades.

(CIDRAP News) – The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently announced that $1.33 billion will be available in this year's round of funding to states to improve preparedness for terrorism and other public health emergencies.

(CIDRAP News) – The world has an unprecedented warning that pandemic influenza may be imminent, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a report that urges swift action to prevent global illness and death.

A WHO report, "Strengthening pandemic influenza preparedness and response," is slated for discussion tomorrow at the organization's annual World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva.

(CIDRAP News) – The H5N1 avian influenza virus is evolving and poses "a continuing and potentially growing pandemic threat," say experts who were convened recently by the World Health Organization (WHO) to study the pathogen.

(CIDRAP News) – State health departments have improved their terrorism preparedness capabilities since 2001, but some of the improvement might have come at the expense of other public health programs, says a report released today.

(CIDRAP News) – A bleak picture of the world's ability to cope with an influenza pandemic is painted in an essay by infectious-disease and bioterrorism expert Michael T. Osterholm, PhD, MPH, in this week's New England Journal of Medicine.