In a flu pandemic, who gets the antiviral drugs?
August 9, 2006 by Grace Ibay
Filed under Diseases & Conditions
Twenty five percent of 296 million people is 75 million .
That’s the number of people anticipated to become infected in a pandemic , and the US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) wants states to purchase enough antivirals to treat this many number of people. The Bush administration plans to purchase enough drugs to treat 44 million people nationwide, or about 15 percent of each state’s population, but states will have to use their own funds to pay for the remaining courses of drugs, although the federal government will also subsidize a quarter of the cost.
California is allocating enough resources to buy antivirals and treat 25 percent of its population. To date, it is one of only 13 states to order the medications. Some states are hesitant to stock up because the antivirals have never been tested to protect against bird flu and they want more evidence the drugs actually will work.
Even if there’s enough to treat 25% nationwide, there’s still the three quarters left untreated. Who gets to decide who’s going to get treated? The DHHS’ recommendations for top priority go to:
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Healthcare workers and essential healthcare support staff
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Groups at high risk of influenza complications
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Critical infrastructure sectors such as government leaders and decision-makers; vaccine manufacturing; public ssfety workers; utility, telecommunications, transportation workers, etc.
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Public health emergency response workers
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Persons in skilled nursing facilities
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Severely immunocompromised persons
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Children <6 months of age
The rationale for the list is in this DHHS pandemic flu plan page.
[Source: pandemicflu.gov; DHHS pandemic flu plan]
Tags: avian flu, health, Health and Human Services, health care workers, pandemic flu, public awareness and prevention, Tamiflu, Relenza
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Check it out at:
http://getreadyforflu.blogspot.com
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I hope this helps.