Reducing the Impact of the Next Influenza Pandemic Using Household-Based Public Healt

[Reeves]

Reducing the Impact of the Next Influenza Pandemic Using Household-Based Public Health Interventions

Joseph T. Wu<SUP>1,</SUP><SUP>2</SUP><SUP></SUP>, Steven Riley<SUP>1</SUP><SUP>*</SUP><SUP></SUP>, Christophe Fraser<SUP>3</SUP>, Gabriel M. Leung<SUP>1</SUP>
1 Department of Community Medicine and School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region, People's Republic of China, 2 School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America, 3 Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom
<!-- start: abstract -->Background

The outbreak of highly pathogenic H5N1 influenza in domestic poultry and wild birds has caused global concern over the possible evolution of a novel human strain [1]. If such a strain emerges, and is not controlled at source [2,3], a pandemic is likely to result. Health policy in most countries will then be focused on reducing morbidity and mortality.
Methods and Findings .........

http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-pdf&file=10.1371_journal.pmed.0030361-L.pdf
http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-journal.pmed.0030361

 

[Laidback Al]

Reducing the Impact of the Next Influenza Pandemic Using Household-Based Public Healt

From the Editors? Summary of the article (page 9)


Using this model, the authors predicted that even if only half of the
population were to comply with public health interventions, the
proportion infected during the first year of an influenza pandemic could
be substantially reduced by a combination of household-based
quarantine, isolation of actively infected individuals in a location outside
the household, and targeted prophylactic treatment of exposed
individuals with anti-viral drugs. Based on an influenza-associated
mortality rate of 0.5% (as has been estimated for New York City in the
1918?1919 pandemic), the magnitude of the predicted benefit of these
interventions is a reduction from 49% to 27% in the proportion of the
population who become ill in the first year of the pandemic, which
would correspond to 16,000 fewer deaths in a city the size of Hong Kong
(6.8 million people). In the model, anti-viral treatment appeared to be
about as effective as isolation when each was used in combination with
household quarantine, but would require stockpiling 3.9 doses of antiviral
for each member of the population. Contact tracing was predicted
to provide a modest additional benefit over quarantine and isolation, but
also to increase considerably the proportion of the population in
quarantine.