Public Health

(CIDRAP News) – Outpatient clinics should provide separate waiting and exam rooms for possible H1N1 flu patients and prepare business continuity plans, among other steps to prepare for a potential flood of pandemic flu patients this fall, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended today.

(CIDRAP News) – A national consortium of groups that have a stake in managing foodborne illness outbreaks today released guidelines for outbreak response, a document that includes model practices for each investigation stage, giving local and state officials a baseline for assessing their current procedures.

Rural doctor and 'genius grant' winner nominated as surgeon generalPresident Barack Obama today nominated an Alabama family physician and MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" winner to be surgeon general. Regina Benjamin, MD, MBA, founded a health clinic to serve tiny Bayou La Batre, Ala., home to poor, mostly uninsured African-American and immigrant Asian fishermen, and rebuilt it three times after two hurricanes and a fire.

(CIDRAP News) – Public health officials in Canada yesterday announced that they have detected a new influenza strain—one that contains human seasonal flu and a swine flu virus—in two workers on a Saskatchewan hog farm.

The workers had mild illness and have recovered, and authorities are investigating a third suspected case, the Public Health Agency of Canada said in statement yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – As President Obama's Food Safety Working Group announced its key steps today, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) unveiled sweeping new egg safety rules designed to reduce the burden of Salmonella illnesses in humans.

(CIDRAP News) – At the same time that the Obama Administration inaugurates new safety and enforcement standards for the agencies overseeing food production in the United States, one of those agencies—the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—is taking steps to improve the flow of data revealing food-safety problems.

(CIDRAP News) – The American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) recently released a plan to help emergency departments, first responders, and public health departments manage a surge in pandemic flu cases that many experts predict will happen this fall.

Editor's Note: CIDRAP's Promising Practices: Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Tools (www.publichealthpractices.org) 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.

Editor's note: CIDRAP's Promising Practices: Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Tools (www.publichealthpractices.org) 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) – Against the backdrop of a global struggle to solve a dispute related to H5N1 avian influenza virus sharing and an anxious watch over the novel H1N1 virus sweeping the globe, a new public database for sharing influenza genetic sequences is easing the flow of data and winning the support of a growing community of researchers and health officials, even some from countries that have sparred in the past over intellectual property rights.