An influenza pandemic remains a major public health concern. A key strategy to prevent a pandemic is to stockpile and pre-position stable influenza vaccine to allow rapid deployment in response to an outbreak. However, most influenza vaccines today are formulated as liquids that are stable only within a temperature range of 2°C to 8°C and require use of a cold chain, making vaccine transportati...

Pandemic influenza is one of a small number of infectious diseases that pose a significant global threat. Pandemic preparedness has accelerated around the world in recent years in response to the perceived increased risk of a pandemic developing following the emergence of H5N1 avian influenza in domestic poultry flocks in Asia, Africa and Europe. There is a hierarchy of pandemic plans - interna...

The National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza outlines a plan for community response to a potential pandemic. In this outline, state and local communities are charged with enhancing their preparedness. In order to help public health officials better understand these charges, we have developed a visual analytics toolkit (PanViz) for analyzing the effect of decision measures implemented during a s...

A strong evidence base provides the foundation for planning and response strategies. Investments in pandemic preparedness included support for research that aided early detection, response, and control of the 2009 influenza A (H1N1) (pH1N1) pandemic. Scientific investigations conducted during the pandemic guided understanding of the virus, disease severity, and epidemiologic risk factors. Field...

Alternative care facilities (ACFs) have been widely proposed in state, local, and national pandemic preparedness plans as a way to address the expected shortage of available medical facilities during an influenza pandemic. These plans describe many types of ACFs, but their function and roles are unclear and need to be carefully considered because of the limited resources available and the reduc...

BACKGROUND With the emergence of influenza H1N1v the world is facing its first 21st century global pandemic. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and avian influenza H5N1 prompted development of pandemic preparedness plans. National systems of public health law are essential for public health stewardship and for the implementation of public health policy. International coherence will contri...

Abstract:The purpose of this study was to assess influenza preparedness levels among Spanish-speaking adults ages 18 and older in two rural communities in Central California. Data were collected from 209 participants using the 21-item Emergency Preparedness Measurement Scale, an instrument designed and validated for this study. Results suggest that adult Spanish-speaking Latinos are not prepare...

aCommunicable Disease Policy Research Group, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Bangkok, Thailand. bDepartment of Communicable Disease Control, Ministry of Health, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. cSaw Swee Hock School of Public Health, National University of Singapore, Singapore. Correspondence to Anthony C Huszar (e-mail: [email protected]) Introduction Experts have estimated that a pandemi...

In this paper, we describe the agent-based modeling (ABM), simulation and analysis of a potential Sarin gas attack in the Port Authority Bus Terminal in the island of Manhattan in New York city, USA. The streets and subways of Manhattan have been modeled as a non-planar graph. The people at the terminal are modeled as agents initially moving randomly, but with a resultant drift velocity towards...

While measures such as closing schools and social distancing may slow the effects of pandemic influenza, only vaccines and antiviral drugs are clearly efficacious in preventing infection or treating illness. Unless the pandemic strain closely resembles one already recognized, vaccine will not be available early. However, studies can be conducted beforehand to address questions concerning vaccin...