[PNWHEALTH] HHS Draft National Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Plan fyi

[Laura Larsson]

Friends:

Thought you might find this announcement from HHS regarding their 
National Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Plan (Draft for 
comments) of interest. The URL is in the first paragraph.

Laura

Date:    Thu, 26 Aug 2004 10:26:46 -0400
From:    "Henneghan, Martha (HHS/OS)" <MARTHA.HENNEGHAN at HHS.GOV>
Subject: HHS RELEASE - NATIONAL PANDEMIC INFLUENZA PREPAREDNESS PLAN
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Date: Aug. 26, 2004
For Release: Immediately
Contact:  Sarah Landry, OPHS/NVPO
(202) 690-5566

Headline: HHS ISSUES NATIONAL PANDEMIC INFLUENZA PREPAREDNESS PLAN

HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson today unveiled the department's 
draft Pandemic Influenza Response and Preparedness Plan, which 
outlines a coordinated national strategy to prepare for and 
respond to an influenza pandemic.  The draft plan can be found 
online at <http://www.hhs.gov/nvpo/pandemicplan> and is available 
for public comment for 60 days.

"This plan will serve as our roadmap on how we as a nation, and 
as a member of the global health community, respond to the next 
pandemic influenza outbreak, whenever that may be," Secretary 
Thompson said.  "Our proposed strategy draws upon the wealth of 
experience and knowledge we have gained in responding to a number 
of recent public health threats, including SARS and avian influenza."

In particular, the plan provides guidance to national, state, and 
local policy makers and health departments for public health 
preparation and response in the event of pandemic influenza outbreak.

Influenza pandemics are explosive global events in which most, if 
not all, persons worldwide are at risk for infection and illness. 
  While rare, the appearance of such a pandemic virus will likely 
be unaffected by currently available flu vaccines that are 
modified each year to match the strains of the virus that are 
known to be in circulation among humans around the world. Unlike 
the gradual changes that occur in the influenza viruses that 
appear each year during "flu season," a pandemic influenza virus 
is one that represents a major, sudden shift in the virus' 
structure that increases its ability to cause illness in a large 
proportion of the population.  During previous influenza 
pandemics large numbers of people were ill, sought medical care, 
were hospitalized and died.

Three influenza pandemics occurred during the 20th century. The 
most recent influenza pandemic occurred in 1968 with the Hong 
Kong Flu outbreak, which resulted in nearly 34,000 deaths in the 
United States.  In 1957, the Asian flu pandemic resulted in about 
70,000 deaths. The most deadly influenza pandemic outbreak was 
the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, which caused illness in roughly 20 
to 40 percent of the world's population and more than 50 million
deaths worldwide.  Between September 1918 and April 1919, 
approximately 675,000 deaths from the Spanish flu occurred in the 
United States alone.

Planning and implementing preparedness activities are critical to 
improving the effectiveness of a response and decreasing the 
impacts of a pandemic. HHS has increased support for pandemic 
influenza activities and is engaged in several efforts to enhance 
the nation's preparedness for such an outbreak.  HHS supports 
pandemic influenza activities in five key areas: surveillance, 
vaccine development and production, antiviral stockpiling,
research, and public health preparedness.

This draft plan includes a core section and twelve annexes.  The 
core plan describes coordination and decision making at the 
national level; provides an overview of key issues; and outlines 
action steps that should be taken at the national, state, and 
local levels before and during a pandemic. Annexes provide 
additional information to health departments and private
sector organizations for use in developing local preparedness 
plans as well as additional technical information to support the 
core document.

###

Note: All HHS press releases, fact sheets and other press 
materials are available at <http://www.hhs.gov/news>.

-- 
Keep well and connected,

Laura Larsson
Information Content Manager
Digital Assets Manager
Online Learning Developer
Information Appliance/PDA Trainer

Clinical Faculty
Health Services, SPHCM
University of Washington
larsson at u.washington.edu
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