Local planning key to readiness for pandemic flu

A national conference and a new federal report emphasize the role of community collaboration in preparedness for an outbreak.

By Susan J. Landers, AMNews staff. Aug. 6, 2007.

Washington -- Although most roads to pandemic flu readiness remain riddled with potholes, some communities are making steady progress.

Those cities and towns that have made exemplary advances in planning for a surge of ill patients and ways to mitigate the flu's potential devastation were honored, and the lessons they learned were shared during the Second National Congress on Health System Readiness: Pandemic Influenza Community Preparedness Planning, held July 18 to 20 in Washington, D.C.

The congress, sponsored by the AMA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also provided hundreds of representatives of the medical and public health communities the latest research on topics such as hospital surge capacity and vaccine development.

Although the threat of a massive outbreak of a devastating influenza virus has faded from the headlines, it remains very real, said several speakers who cited CDC figures estimating that 90 million Americans would become ill if a 1918-like flu were to emerge. Such a number could quickly overwhelm all medical facilities.

"We are working in this flat world where we have global extremes -- extremes in poverty and climate, the kinds of things that drive the context for emerging infectious diseases, natural disasters, terrorism events and flu pandemics," said CDC Director Julie Gerberding, MD, MPH, who spoke at the congress.

With rapidly disappearing funding, the need to collaborate and innovate becomes even more important as does the ability to network. But often the public health and medical systems appear to be moving in opposite directions, said Dr. Gerberding. "This meeting is about strengthening some of these relationships."