TheFluMaster
Resident
State plan tells residents how to prepare for flu pandemic
By Arthur H. Rotstein
The Associated Press
Arizona state health officials have released a revised flu pandemic readiness plan that calls on families and businesses to prepare and for hospitals to test plans for dealing with overwhelming numbers of patients.
The plan released Feb. 6 recommends that families stockpile food, water and medications to be self-sufficient at home for a period of time during an emergency, with the ability to communicate with family elsewhere.
It also offers a business checklist, ranging from identifying essential workers needed to keep operating during a pandemic to planning for impacts on employees and customers, including absences, and encouraging flu shots.
And it outlines six levels of operations for hospitals in dealing with overwhelming numbers of patients.
The plan discusses a broad series of steps from triage to identify pandemic victims and separate them from others to added security, mortuary issues and providing non-hospital care.
This revision of a state plan drawn up in 2000 is ?a significant advancement forward,? said state epidemiologist David Engelthaler. ?It includes all the existing plans and systems that have been developed for emergency response and brings them together in how we would use those capabilities during a pandemic.?
The plan spans a wide range of actions, from a prepandemic alert to systems that are needed for identifying cases in Arizona, laboratory tests to determine whether a pandemic is starting and monitoring travelers.
It discusses potential uses of stockpiles of antiviral medications ? should any be developed.
A flu pandemic is a worldwide outbreak of influenza from a new virus distinct from past ones and capable of infecting large numbers of people because they lack natural immunity from the new virus.
Three influenza pandemics occurred in the last century. The deadliest ever recorded killed some 50 million people worldwide, including about 650,000 in the United States, during 1918-1919.
Health officials in this country and abroad have been concerned about the potential for such an outbreak to evolve from a virulent bird flu strain that originated in Southeast Asia.
Officials: Pandemic inevitable
United Nations officials have said a worldwide pandemic is inevitable, but Arizona officials cautioned that they are not saying one would occur this year or next.
The new Arizona plan ?follows the federal as well as the World Health Organization model system in terms of how to devise roles and responsibilities as well as when we would put the system in place,? Mr. Engelthaler said. ?It?s kind of a top-to-bottom approach.?
The plan, he said, is the equivalent of an antithesis of what happened in the case of Hurricane Katrina. ?We really see that there are two sides to preparedness,? he said, ?government and community. Obviously, both failed in Katrina. Here in Arizona we have to make sure that both sides are prepared.?
?It?s just the overall significance of the impact of such a large-scale emergency? We can?t be stuck in the old Katrina model where we?re not prepared,? Mr. Engelthaler said.
Mr. Engelthaler said preparedness at the local and community levels, within families, businesses and schools, is vital.
Everyday precautions count, from frequent hand-washing, covering the mouth when coughing and annual flu shots, to staying home from work or school when sick and telecommuting or working from home if needed, he said.
?Certainly we know we?ve got a lot more to do, but this marks a significant advancement forward for preparedness in Arizona,? Mr. Engelthaler said.
http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=432
By Arthur H. Rotstein
The Associated Press
Arizona state health officials have released a revised flu pandemic readiness plan that calls on families and businesses to prepare and for hospitals to test plans for dealing with overwhelming numbers of patients.
The plan released Feb. 6 recommends that families stockpile food, water and medications to be self-sufficient at home for a period of time during an emergency, with the ability to communicate with family elsewhere.
It also offers a business checklist, ranging from identifying essential workers needed to keep operating during a pandemic to planning for impacts on employees and customers, including absences, and encouraging flu shots.
And it outlines six levels of operations for hospitals in dealing with overwhelming numbers of patients.
The plan discusses a broad series of steps from triage to identify pandemic victims and separate them from others to added security, mortuary issues and providing non-hospital care.
This revision of a state plan drawn up in 2000 is ?a significant advancement forward,? said state epidemiologist David Engelthaler. ?It includes all the existing plans and systems that have been developed for emergency response and brings them together in how we would use those capabilities during a pandemic.?
The plan spans a wide range of actions, from a prepandemic alert to systems that are needed for identifying cases in Arizona, laboratory tests to determine whether a pandemic is starting and monitoring travelers.
It discusses potential uses of stockpiles of antiviral medications ? should any be developed.
A flu pandemic is a worldwide outbreak of influenza from a new virus distinct from past ones and capable of infecting large numbers of people because they lack natural immunity from the new virus.
Three influenza pandemics occurred in the last century. The deadliest ever recorded killed some 50 million people worldwide, including about 650,000 in the United States, during 1918-1919.
Health officials in this country and abroad have been concerned about the potential for such an outbreak to evolve from a virulent bird flu strain that originated in Southeast Asia.
Officials: Pandemic inevitable
United Nations officials have said a worldwide pandemic is inevitable, but Arizona officials cautioned that they are not saying one would occur this year or next.
The new Arizona plan ?follows the federal as well as the World Health Organization model system in terms of how to devise roles and responsibilities as well as when we would put the system in place,? Mr. Engelthaler said. ?It?s kind of a top-to-bottom approach.?
The plan, he said, is the equivalent of an antithesis of what happened in the case of Hurricane Katrina. ?We really see that there are two sides to preparedness,? he said, ?government and community. Obviously, both failed in Katrina. Here in Arizona we have to make sure that both sides are prepared.?
?It?s just the overall significance of the impact of such a large-scale emergency? We can?t be stuck in the old Katrina model where we?re not prepared,? Mr. Engelthaler said.
Mr. Engelthaler said preparedness at the local and community levels, within families, businesses and schools, is vital.
Everyday precautions count, from frequent hand-washing, covering the mouth when coughing and annual flu shots, to staying home from work or school when sick and telecommuting or working from home if needed, he said.
?Certainly we know we?ve got a lot more to do, but this marks a significant advancement forward for preparedness in Arizona,? Mr. Engelthaler said.
http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=432