http://govhealthit.com/article102525-04-20-07-Web By Glenda Fauntleroy April 23, 2007 The RAND Corporation last week sounded the alarm for refocusing the nation's attention on a potential pandemic outbreak, warning that the country is underprepared for a disaster that could claim as many as 2 million U.S. lives. We are overdue for a pandemic outbreak, said Nicole Lurie, M.D., co-director of RAND Center for Domestic and International Health Security, at a briefing Friday. Lurie said a pandemic might kill 2 million U.S. residents and 50 million worldwide. And when it strikes, it would take at least 6 months to develop a vaccine for protection. The federal government has invested more than $5 billion since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to upgrade the countrys ability to prevent and respond to large-scale public health emergencies, she said. In contrast, public health has not been well funded for the past 25 years. It took 9/11 to wake people up to see our public health system was a mess. She said the system is still recovering. The amount of $5 billion may look like a lot of money, but its really just a drop in the bucket to whats really needed to reshape the public health system, she said. Lurie said progress has been made in using technology to improve communications and pandemic surveillance but that more investment was needed. Theres been lots of payoff in investing in technology, she said. Those investments have allowed public health agencies to make gains in two critical areas communications and surveillance. Despite these advances, Lurie said, there are still huge gaps in preparedness. She said one hindrance to answering the question, Are we prepared? has been that there is no clear understanding of what being prepared means. As a step toward establishing methods to measure whether a community is ready for a large-scale health emergency, RAND recently convened an expert panel to come to a clear definition of public health preparedness. The panel issued 16 recommended actions for communities around the country to better deal with emergencies, including having a clear command structure, strong public communications, an adequate number of public health workers and volunteers, and a continuous process of testing and maintaining systems. Lurie said that after adopting the panels recommendations, the next step is to ensure public health has a reliable funding stream to continue making improvements. __________________________ Subscribe to InfoSec News http://www.infosecnews.org
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