This was in today's St. Paul (MN) Pioneer Press. The author is from the area's largest HMO.
The URL is http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/editorial/12220091.htm
Free registration is required, or you can do like I did, and get one at bugmenot.com.
So it looks like someone is at least thinking about this issue, which is a good thing I guess.
Planning for a pandemic
The question isn't if, but when an Avian flu outbreak will strike.
JAMES NORDIN
A recent commentary in the New England Journal of Medicine by former state epidemiologist Michael Osterholm raised the specter of an Avian flu pandemic in the near future. The commentary also pointed out that the inevitability of the next pandemic should spur state and local health care agencies and organizations into action, making plans and preparing for the worst.
While some might point to Dr. Osterholm's penchant for telling scary stories, I believe he is right. Whether an Avian flu pandemic will start tomorrow, a year from now or five years from now is hard to predict. However, several indicators suggest it will happen sooner rather than later.
As the number of animals infected gets greater and greater, the risk increases. Cases of Avian flu in Southeast Asia are moving into new species and areas. Most worrisome is the fact that some wild bird species now have picked it up. A mutation that would allow ready person-to-person transmission is all that it will take to start the pandemic.
The impact of such a pandemic is also hard to predict, but it would likely be worse than anything most living Americans have ever experienced. Perhaps the closest example would be the pandemic of 1918 and 1919 that killed an estimated 50 million to 100 million people worldwide, with the highest death rate among healthy young people in their late teens, 20s and 30s. The genetics of the Avian flu now circulating in Southeast Asia are very similar to that of the 1918-19 flu.
Given the fact that the world population now is many times what it was then and the fact that people can circle the globe within 24 hours, a pandemic of a virus similar to that of 1918-19 (which the current H5N1 strain is) could be expected to move very fast and kill 180 million to 360 million people worldwide and 1.7 million people in the United States.
Our community needs to be working on pandemic preparedness on multiple levels: detection, containment, and public health and medical system preparedness. Planning is crucial and needs to occur at the international, national, state and local levels. Large medical groups and health plans should also set up contingency plans.
HealthPartners has a planning group on pandemic influenza preparedness already functioning, working on distribution plans for stockpiling and distributing flu vaccine and anti-viral medication, which we hope will be available during the early months of a pandemic. This group is also planning the major changes in the health system that would be needed to deal with the pandemic.
Early detection of the virus in the population will be crucial. An electronic surveillance system HealthPartners has developed to scan for signs of bioterrorism also has worked well for detecting influenza early. The Minnesota Department of Health also has a number of medical providers across the state who monitor viral cultures when they suspect that influenza could be in the community. Hospitals will also need to strengthen surveillance.
Beyond surveillance, the public will need clear information to help reduce anxiety and prevent panic in the event of a pandemic. The fact is that the majority of people will not get the influenza. Of those who do, most will have just a bad viral illness. A small percentage of people will get very ill and some will die. A well-informed public will help reduce the burden on the health care system as it triages the seriously ill from the ill and the worried well.
While the potential disruption to our society from a pandemic is significant, appropriate planning and preparation at multiple levels right now gives us the best opportunity to lessen the impact. I strongly urge the appropriate organizations within our community to continue working on these activities.
Nordin is chairman of HealthPartners Immunization Expert Panel.
The URL is http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/editorial/12220091.htm
Free registration is required, or you can do like I did, and get one at bugmenot.com.
So it looks like someone is at least thinking about this issue, which is a good thing I guess.
Planning for a pandemic
The question isn't if, but when an Avian flu outbreak will strike.
JAMES NORDIN
A recent commentary in the New England Journal of Medicine by former state epidemiologist Michael Osterholm raised the specter of an Avian flu pandemic in the near future. The commentary also pointed out that the inevitability of the next pandemic should spur state and local health care agencies and organizations into action, making plans and preparing for the worst.
While some might point to Dr. Osterholm's penchant for telling scary stories, I believe he is right. Whether an Avian flu pandemic will start tomorrow, a year from now or five years from now is hard to predict. However, several indicators suggest it will happen sooner rather than later.
As the number of animals infected gets greater and greater, the risk increases. Cases of Avian flu in Southeast Asia are moving into new species and areas. Most worrisome is the fact that some wild bird species now have picked it up. A mutation that would allow ready person-to-person transmission is all that it will take to start the pandemic.
The impact of such a pandemic is also hard to predict, but it would likely be worse than anything most living Americans have ever experienced. Perhaps the closest example would be the pandemic of 1918 and 1919 that killed an estimated 50 million to 100 million people worldwide, with the highest death rate among healthy young people in their late teens, 20s and 30s. The genetics of the Avian flu now circulating in Southeast Asia are very similar to that of the 1918-19 flu.
Given the fact that the world population now is many times what it was then and the fact that people can circle the globe within 24 hours, a pandemic of a virus similar to that of 1918-19 (which the current H5N1 strain is) could be expected to move very fast and kill 180 million to 360 million people worldwide and 1.7 million people in the United States.
Our community needs to be working on pandemic preparedness on multiple levels: detection, containment, and public health and medical system preparedness. Planning is crucial and needs to occur at the international, national, state and local levels. Large medical groups and health plans should also set up contingency plans.
HealthPartners has a planning group on pandemic influenza preparedness already functioning, working on distribution plans for stockpiling and distributing flu vaccine and anti-viral medication, which we hope will be available during the early months of a pandemic. This group is also planning the major changes in the health system that would be needed to deal with the pandemic.
Early detection of the virus in the population will be crucial. An electronic surveillance system HealthPartners has developed to scan for signs of bioterrorism also has worked well for detecting influenza early. The Minnesota Department of Health also has a number of medical providers across the state who monitor viral cultures when they suspect that influenza could be in the community. Hospitals will also need to strengthen surveillance.
Beyond surveillance, the public will need clear information to help reduce anxiety and prevent panic in the event of a pandemic. The fact is that the majority of people will not get the influenza. Of those who do, most will have just a bad viral illness. A small percentage of people will get very ill and some will die. A well-informed public will help reduce the burden on the health care system as it triages the seriously ill from the ill and the worried well.
While the potential disruption to our society from a pandemic is significant, appropriate planning and preparation at multiple levels right now gives us the best opportunity to lessen the impact. I strongly urge the appropriate organizations within our community to continue working on these activities.
Nordin is chairman of HealthPartners Immunization Expert Panel.