Week 2 asks this question of the blog participants:

What are my constituents concerns? How can I play an important role in communicating the need to prepare?

Michael Coston, retired medic and founder of the Avian Flu Diary shares his thoughts on our roles, as ordinary citizens, in preparing for a pandemic. He begins with a history lesson from World War II when America was mobilized as a nation.

Millions of men and women enlisted in the army. But more than than, millions more joined the war effort on the homefront -

Housewives took off their aprons and donned tool belts, went to work in shipyards and airplane factories, and the legend of Rosie the Riveter was born. Ordinary citizens, many too old for active service, volunteered to become block wardens and aircraft spotters. Teenagers rolled bandages or served donuts for the Red Cross, and volunteers worked in VA hospitals and USO clubs around the nation. Everyone recycled for the war effort, housewives collected grease, and people accepted the need for ration coupons and meatless Tuesdays.

During WWII, there were people called ‘dollar-a-year-men‘, business executives and community leaders who served their nations at little or no pay.

Coston iterates that we need to be having that same mindset in the present time. Some of the ways ordinary citizens can put this mindset on the larger public are the following:

1. Utilize ‘flubies’, members of of flu forums who already are well informed, passionate, and ahead of the curve on pandemic preparation.

2. Send the message out through community town hall style meetings all across the country.

3. Utilize retired medical personnel – doctors, medics, nurses, who can teach home flu care and preventative hygiene classes in our communities.

4. Mobilize community volunteers – ” along the lines of a State or Federally sanctioned Volunteer Pandemic Corps, where citizens can band together to help their communities solve local problems.”

5. And Coston’s personal commitment -

“It is my hope we can create an army of graying volunteers, thin of hair, but not of spirit, to do those jobs during a pandemic we wouldn’t wish upon our children.”

Way to go!

Tags: pandemic flu, forum, leadership blog, HHS

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Pandemic Flu Forum – we are the solution

Week 2 asks this question of the blog participants:

What are my constituents concerns? How can I play an important role in communicating the need to prepare?

Greg Dworkin, founding editor of the Flu Wiki, summarized important points from the first week’s discussion -

Tags: flu, pandemic, leadership forum

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Pandemic Flu Forum – teaching the basics of preparedness

Rebecca Patton of the American Nurses Association presents several interesting and practical ways of improving the health care system before a pandemic disaster strikes.

1. Change where we birth most babies. Plans should be made to expand opportunities for out-of-hospital home of birthing-center deliveries. There is no need for healthy pregnant women to go to a hospital already overwhelmed by influenza patients.

2. Provide health care workers sufficient emergency supplies such as respirators and personal protective equipment.

I would add all medical facilities need to be up to speed with pandemic emergency preparedness and well-stocked with pandemic flu supplies. Pediatric and family clinics especially need to be in the loop, because most individuals will bring themselves and their families to smaller, probably less equipped clinics for flu-like symptoms.

Tags: pandemic flu, preparedness, pandemic flu leadership forum

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Pandemic Flu Forum – Nurses join the debate

Albert Ruesga’s contribution “Lessons from Katrina” is a post that brought pandemic preparation in a different light. Here’s why -

… (Hurricane Katrian Disaster) didn’t affect all populations equally. The poor, the elderly, and the infirm were hardest hit, populations least able to shelter properly, or flee, or recover from the storm’s devastating effects.

Likewise, while a flu pandemic can affect anyone, at any income level, those of us who are not already weakened by food insecurity, who have access to quality health care, who can afford to stay home from work to avoid infection—have a much better chance of surviving.

Ruesga point is that if America is to effectively prepare for a pandemic, then the Administration “must bolser – rather than dismantle – the safety net for the poor”, the demographic having the least chances of survival.

He urges President Bush’s adminstration NOT to cut the domestic discretionary spending, including health care services which are aimed at helping the most vulnerable group.

Tags: pandemic, preparedness, hurricane Katrina

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Pandemic Flu Forum – Lessons from Katrina

Nedra Weinreich of Spare Change talks about “Preparing for Persuasion”. The toughest part of pandemic preparation is getting the community involved and “putting the pandemic into the public consciousness” enough for them to want to make changes. How do we persuade people to do the right thing?

1. Education. Provide facts and statistics about pandemic and bird flu.

2. Coersion by passing laws or enacting policies. It may be necessary to enforce quarantines.

3. Social marketing. Appeal to a person’s values and emotions by “selling” the desired bahaviors. “The marketing approach also offers us a strategic way to think through all the aspects of convincing someone to take action”.

Tags: pandemic flu, preparedness, pandemic flu leadership forum

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Pandemic Flu Forum – Preparing for Persuasion

The blog was launched on May 22 and already have several intelligent debate and comments going back and forth.

Week 1 of the HHS Pandemic Flu leadership blog tackled the need to prepare.

Why should we, as Americans, be concerned about personal preparedness for pandemic influenza? Why is it important that individuals commit to prepare? Why is this particularly important to me, as a community, business/labor, religious, or healthcare leader?

One of the bloggers to tackle this question was Michael Coston of the Avian Flu Diary posting about “Using our time wisely” and I’d like to highlight some of the important points that he raises and issues that we still have to face.

1. The H5N1 virus continues to mutate, spread, infect new hosts. Scientists are no less concerned today than they were a year ago and study the viral evolution closerly.

2. We have the ability to observe this virus as it evolves and moves toward a pandemic strain. Which means,

3. We have the unique opportunity to prepare well. Unlike the generations past.

4. Unless the idea of a pandemic becomes part of public consciousness, the idea of preparing is unlikely to gain traction.

5. A pandemic WILL happen. and it will be ‘very, very bad’. Pandemics, on average, occurs every 30 to 40 years. It’s been 39 years since the last one. Over the past 300 years, we have seen 10 pandemics. Nothing indicates that this will change.

5. It is impossible for the government alone to prepare a nation of 300 million people.

6. There is something that each individual CAN DO to prepare, now. It starts with getting used to certain habits and

7. Basic hygiene tops it all – frequent hand washing, avoiding crowds, covering our mouth when we cough or sneeze, staying home when we are sick or suspect we have been exposed to a virus.

8. Voluntary home quarantines will significantly slow the spread. This means, if one family member is infected, everyone in the household need to stay home.

9. Preparing to stay home – having the supplies needed for weeks of “sheltering in place”, being self-sufficient – will secure their safety and protect their community. In a pandemic, two weeks of supplies may not be enough.

10. Household need to be equiiped and informed to take their own medical needs during a pandemic.

11. Preparing today, while supplies are abundant and the supply chain is intact, is the most ethical and most essential thing you can do.

12. Once a pandemic is on our doorstep, our time to prepare will have ended.

Tags: avian flu, flu pandemic, flu, preparations, Flu preparedness leadership forum

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Pandemic Flu Forum – The Need to Prepare

“Any community that fails to prepare with the expectation that the federal or state government will rescue them will be tragically mistaken.”

[source: Pandemic Flu Leadership Blog]

Tags: pandemic, flu, avian, bird flu, preparedness

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Flu quote of the day

In a classic outbreak scenario, the script called for a student infected with a new strain of H5N1 returns from Indonesia and dies, but not before infecting others, including members of a swimming team.

By end of day One, 12 people contracted the disease in four states, and 25 percent die.

By Day Two, the cases double to 25 and the CDC is forced to consider severe control measures – closing schools, banning flights from Indonesia, or even shutting U.S. borders.

The CDC decided against these measures. Instead, they send experts to Indonesia, release a quarter of the U.S. stockpile of flu vaccines and limits all incoming international flights to just 10 US airports to screen passengers and limit the disease’s spread.

This part two of a three-stage flu pandemic drill, the CDC simulated how agencies would marshall its resources and manage the public.

“If we were at the beginning of a pandemic this is exactly what it would look like,” said CDC Director Julie Gerberding at a news conference early in the 48-hour drill, which involved hundreds of officials. “If things turn out wrong it could lead to a “catastrophe beyond our planning,” she said.

The exercise captured the hazardous and difficult decisions that needed to be made quickly in the event of a pandemic.

From a similar exercise back in January, here are issues that need immediate answer and responses:

In a final round in May, the virus gets to Atlanta and takes out 40 percent of CDC’s workforce.

[sources: washingtonpost;reuters]

Tags: U.S. CDC, center of disease control and prevention, flu, exercise, drill, pandemic

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CDC conducts flu epidemic drill

April 7 is marked as WORLD HEALTH DAY and this year’s focus is all about “international health security“.

Globalization has brought with it increasing health and security threats, and yet also more opportunities to disseminate information, and rapidly respond to outbreaks that most certainly will affect more than one nation. To quote the issues paper -

(There is a) need to reduce the vulnerability of people around the world to new, acute or rapidly spreading risks to health, particularly those that threaten to cross international borders…

The danger that new diseases to which there is universal vulnerability will cause international harm means that countries can no longer manage certain types of outbreaks as though they were strictly domestic affairs.

Issue #1 on the debate was emerging and re-emerging diseases. Mapped from 1996-2004, Ebola and CCHF were identified as spreading the most in several continents. If data from 2005 were to be included, I suspect influenza H5N1 would compete for that dreaded number 1 spot.

… since then the world has been on constant alert for an influenza epidemic.

Tags: world health, influenza, H5N1, globalization, emerging diseases, international, security

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World health, international security and bird flu

Because of this common sentiment, a group of Indonesian moms decided to take matters in their own hands by organizing a talk show on the bird flu. Some of the topcs addressed were basic information about the nature of H5N1, how families should treat sick of dying poultry and what to do if they do get flu-like symptoms. The audience was a mixture of association members, school drivers, students and teachers. After showing a flm titled ‘Race against the Killer Flu’ they bombarded the speaker with questions like -

”Why is bird flu present in Indonesia, but not in other countries?” “Which part of our body is affected by the H5N1 virus?” “What is the difference between H5N1 virus and HIV?” ”Can vaccination alone stop the outbreak of the virus among birds?” “How do humans get infected with the H5N1 virus?”

- which goes to show that a little effort like this can go a long way to opening more interest and action from the public. Maybe the Indonesian government can learn a little from these moms.

Now to be fair, the government does have television campaigns. But really, how many rural villages have a TV set, and like the rest of the world, “Indonesian viewers switch to other channels during commercial breaks.”

Source: IPS News

Tags: flu, bird flu, influenza, viral disease, illness, health, medicine, prevention

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Mothers Against Bird Flu