Innovation for Pandemics

Stockpiling Ventilators for Influenza Pandemics

Stockpiling Ventilators for Influenza Pandemics

In preparing for influenza pandemics, public health agencies stockpile critical medical resources. Determining appropriate quantities and locations for such resources can be challenging, given the considerable uncertainty in the timing and severity of future pandemics. We introduce a method for optimizing stockpiles of mechanical ventilators, which are critical for treating hospitalized influen...

Journals, Academics, and Pandemics

Two articles published recently in PLoS Medicine highlight the problem of how to effectively share information in the wake of a rapidly spreading disease, and prompted us to ask the question ''How well are journals doing?'' with regard to this important goal. The answer, sadly, seems to be ''not well enough.'' Although the potential of the Internet for improving the dissemination of information...

Pandemics and National Security

Traditionally, national security has been narrowly defined as the preservation of the state from physical threats. Still, emerging diseases and their pandemic potential pose perhaps an even greater national security threat, particularly in this era of globalization when disease can spread more rapidly than in previous eras. Thirty four percent of all deaths worldwide are now attributable to inf...

Engineering responses to pandemics

Focusing on pandemic influenza, this chapter approaches the planning for and response to such a major worldwide health event as a complex engineering systems problem. Action-oriented analysis of pandemics requires a broad inclusion of academic disciplines since no one domain can cover a significant fraction of the problem. Numerous research papers and action plans have treated pandemics as pure...