Influenza Pandemic: Continued Focus on the Nation's Planning and Preparedness Efforts Remains Essential
GAO-09-760T June 3, 2009
United States Government Accountability Office
What GAO Found
• Leadership roles and responsibilities for an influenza pandemic need to be clarified, tested, and exercised, and existing coordination mechanisms, such as critical infrastructure coordinating councils, could be better utilized to address challenges in coordination between the federal, state, and local governments and the private sector in preparing for a pandemic.
• Efforts are underway to improve the surveillance and detection of pandemic-related threats in humans and animals, but targeting assistance to countries at the greatest risk has been based on incomplete information, particularly from developing countries.
• Pandemic planning and exercising has occurred at the federal, state, and local government levels, but important planning gaps remain at all levels of government.
• Further actions are needed to address the capacity to respond to and recover from an influenza pandemic, which will require additional capacity in patient treatment space, and the acquisition and distribution of medical and other critical supplies, such as antivirals and vaccines.
• Federal agencies have provided considerable guidance and pandemic-related information to state and local governments, but could augment their efforts with additional information on state border closures and other topics.
• Performance monitoring and accountability for pandemic preparedness needs strengthening. For example, the May 2006 National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza Implementation Plan does not establish priorities among its 324 action items and does not provide information on the financial resources needed to implement them.
The recent outbreak of the H1N1 influenza virus should serve as a powerful reminder that the threat of a pandemic influenza, which seemed to fade from public awareness in recent years, never really disappeared. While federal agencies have taken action on 13 of GAO’s 23 recommendations, 10 of the recommendations that GAO has made over the past 3 years are still not fully implemented. With the possibility that the H1N1 virus could return in a more virulent form in a second wave in the fall or winter, the administration and federal agencies should turn their attention to filling in the planning and preparedness gaps GAO’s work has pointed out. [bolding is mine]
http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d09760thigh.pdf
GAO-09-760T June 3, 2009
United States Government Accountability Office
What GAO Found
• Leadership roles and responsibilities for an influenza pandemic need to be clarified, tested, and exercised, and existing coordination mechanisms, such as critical infrastructure coordinating councils, could be better utilized to address challenges in coordination between the federal, state, and local governments and the private sector in preparing for a pandemic.
• Efforts are underway to improve the surveillance and detection of pandemic-related threats in humans and animals, but targeting assistance to countries at the greatest risk has been based on incomplete information, particularly from developing countries.
• Pandemic planning and exercising has occurred at the federal, state, and local government levels, but important planning gaps remain at all levels of government.
• Further actions are needed to address the capacity to respond to and recover from an influenza pandemic, which will require additional capacity in patient treatment space, and the acquisition and distribution of medical and other critical supplies, such as antivirals and vaccines.
• Federal agencies have provided considerable guidance and pandemic-related information to state and local governments, but could augment their efforts with additional information on state border closures and other topics.
• Performance monitoring and accountability for pandemic preparedness needs strengthening. For example, the May 2006 National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza Implementation Plan does not establish priorities among its 324 action items and does not provide information on the financial resources needed to implement them.
The recent outbreak of the H1N1 influenza virus should serve as a powerful reminder that the threat of a pandemic influenza, which seemed to fade from public awareness in recent years, never really disappeared. While federal agencies have taken action on 13 of GAO’s 23 recommendations, 10 of the recommendations that GAO has made over the past 3 years are still not fully implemented. With the possibility that the H1N1 virus could return in a more virulent form in a second wave in the fall or winter, the administration and federal agencies should turn their attention to filling in the planning and preparedness gaps GAO’s work has pointed out. [bolding is mine]
http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d09760thigh.pdf