Welcome to Modern Healthcare's informational site on preparedness for a
possible avian flu pandemic. The site will be updated regularly with news stories, studies and features on
the flu threat. Primary sources will be Modern Healthcare staff reporting as well as stories from other news organizations and reports from government sites and public health agencies.
Severe illness from the H1N1 virus can occur at all ages, with about 30% of hospitalized cases requiring treatment in an intensive-care unit, says a new study in the Nov. 4 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
In a legal battle pitting the nation’s largest healthcare union against the nation’s largest hospital owner, bargaining units of the Service Employees International Union are suing Nashville-based HCA over the system’s goal of having all of its direct-care workers receive flu shots.
The American College of Emergency Physicians—together with HHS' Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response and its Emergency Care Coordination Center—have developed a set of guidelines to help the public determine if their flu-like symptoms merit an emergency-department visit.
As state health departments and healthcare providers wait for more shipments of the H1N1 flu vaccine to arrive, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports there are 24.8 million doses available as of Thursday, an increase of 1.6 million doses since Wednesday.
The federal government last week drew praise for its efforts so far to combat the H1N1 flu outbreak even as officials worried about the nation’s ability to cope with the disease.
President Barack Obama has declared the H1N1 “swine flu” outbreak a national emergency. Officials said the proclamation would allow medical officials to bypass certain federal requirements, describing the move as similar to a declaration ahead of a hurricane making landfall.
The state of New York has reversed course on an earlier decision mandating that healthcare workers receive flu shots, as State Health Commissioner Richard Daines has suspended the requirement.
With 46 states reporting widespread flu activity, the leader for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that the H1N1 virus has now caused more than 1,000 deaths and more than 20,000 hospitalizations in the U.S.
The American Medical Association has launched a new Web site intended to help patients determine the severity of their flu symptoms and share information with their physician.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) lauded the efforts of three Cabinet departments in managing the spread of the 2009 H1N1 flu outbreak, but also expressed concerns about a delay in vaccine production, the capacity of hospitals and health departments to handle a surge in hospital visits, and the availability of intravenous anti-viral medications for those patients who need it.
When the deadly H1N1 influenza virus emerged last spring, federal health officials reported a fact that surprised many Americans: About 36,000 people in the U.S. die from the seasonal flu each year.
As 37 states reported widespread flu activity for the week of Oct. 5—up from 27 the week before—an official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said nearly all of those cases have been identified as the 2009 H1N1 influenza A virus, and a vaccine is still the best protection against the deadly disease.
Thirty-seven states are reporting widespread flu activity—up from 27 last week—and nearly all of the cases have been identified as the 2009 H1N1 influenza A virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said he expects the distribution of the vaccine for the deadly H1N1 virus—which began this week—to be a bumpy process, but that the vaccine will soon be widely available.
State and local health agencies must develop protocols that guide providers on how to allocate scarce resources during public health crises, such as terrorist attacks or pandemics, the Institute of Medicine said in a new report to HHS, which commissioned the study.
Before the World Health Organization declared a global flu pandemic in June, a sampling of states and localities showed they had not implemented an electronic medical system for managing medical volunteers in a surge, says a new report from the HHS inspector general's office.
Global production of swine flu vaccines will be "substantially less" than the previous maximum forecast of 94 million doses a week, the World Health Organization said Friday.
Vaccination of healthcare workers against the deadly H1N1 flu virus plays an important role in quality of care, said an epidemiologist who leads the H1N1 vaccine task force at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
The Food and Drug Administration said it has approved four vaccines against the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus, popularly known as swine flu, which caused the World Health Organization to declare a global flu pandemic this summer.
To reduce the risk of infection, healthcare workers who are in close contact with individuals who have the influenza H1N1, or swine flu, virus should use fit-tested N95 respirators or other respirators that are shown to be more effective, according to a new report from the Institute of Medicine.
In a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, President Barack Obama designated $2.7 billion to help various federal agencies respond to the potential spread of the deadly 2009 H1N1 virus. The funding will help HHS and the State, Agriculture, Defense and Veterans Affairs departments procure vaccine product and supplies, antiviral medications, preparations for a vaccine campaign and other related activities.
After a presidential advisory committee report last week said a resurgence of the 2009 H1N1 virus could cause 30,000 to 90,000 U.S. deaths later this year, healthcare providers expressed concern about protecting their employees against the deadly flu strain.
As the fall flu season approaches, the 2009 H1N1 virus is unlikely to mirror the deadly pandemic of 1918-19, but still “poses a serious threat” to the country, according to a new report from a presidential advisory committee of scientists from industry and academia.
This past spring, many flu patients avoided hospital emergency departments and visited clinics instead. For the upcoming flu season, the focus will be on treating people with the HIN1 virus in their homes and avoiding hospitalizations, according to Thomas Michaels, an infection-control specialist with Minnesota's HealthPartners system.
Healthcare providers should be prepared for more patients infected with the H1N1 virus, or swine flu, in the upcoming flu season than they saw last spring, but how severe any outbreak will be remains unclear, according to speakers participating in a CMS-sponsored conference call called the Hospitals Open Door Forum.
New York's State Hospital Review and Planning Council has approved an emergency regulation requiring each healthcare facility to provide or arrange for influenza vaccinations for personnel, at no cost to its workers, either at the facility or elsewhere.
About 100 nurses rallied on the main campus of the University of California at San Francisco Medical Center to demand better safeguards against the H1N1, or “swine flu,” virus on the same day a preliminary survey showed weaknesses in protecting healthcare workers against the deadly disease.
As a federal advisory panel last week recommended that pregnant women and healthcare workers be among the first to receive a vaccine against the H1N1 virus, experts said both providers and patients need to do a better job of taking precautions against it.
Pregnant women, caregivers of young children, and healthcare workers should be among the first to receive a vaccine against the H1N1 virus when one becomes available, recommends a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention committee.
Pregnant women infected with the 2009 H1N1 virus, commonly referred to as swine flu, had a higher rate of hospitalization and greater risk of death than the general population, according to new data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Health officials are projecting that up to 40% of Americans could get the so-called swine flu this year and next and several hundred thousand could die without a successful vaccine campaign and other measures.
Anticipating a potential resurgence of the H1N1 influenza virus this fall, HHS in the past few weeks has invested more federal dollars to try to ensure the nation is well-prepared to manage the disease.
State health departments did a better job of communicating information quickly to the public than local health departments at the start of the H1N1 outbreak this spring, according to a new report.
The American College of Emergency Physicians has released a national strategic plan on how to manage emergency departments during outbreaks of the H1N1 influenza virus, or swine flu.
Half of healthcare workers infected with H1N1 influenza A, commonly known as swine flu, acquired the virus in a healthcare setting and did not use all recommended forms of personal protective equipment on a consistent basis, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in its weekly report.
The World Health Organization on Thursday declared a global flu pandemic in response to this year’s outbreak of the HIN1 influenza A virus, commonly referred to as swine flu. It is the first pandemic in 41 years.
Healthcare groups applauded the appointment of New York City Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden as the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, saying he has the experience and toughness necessary to fight infectious disease.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acting director continued to call for vigilance last week as health officials closely monitored the global flu outbreak.
Richard Besser, M.D., acting administrator of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said he is concerned that people are beginning to think the world has “dodged a bullet” because the 2009 H1N1 influenza A virus, or swine flu, has yet to deliver the scope of death and disease they feared.
The acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stressed community awareness and said the outbreak of 2009 H1N1 influenza A virus, or swine flu, is “still in the upswing of what we call the epidemic curve” in a daily briefing.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention remains “concerned” as the agency continues to learn more about the transmission of the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus, or swine flu, acting CDC Director Richard Besser told reporters in a briefing on the outbreak that has now claimed two lives in the U.S., including a Texas woman who had recently given birth.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it no longer recommends that communities with a laboratory-confirmed case of H1N1 influenza A, or swine flu, consider adopting school dismissal or childcare closure measures.
Richard Besser, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a teleconference that initial laboratory tests of the 2009 H1N1 influenza A virus, widely known as swine flu, offer "encouraging signs" as health officials continue to closely track its spread.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. had 109 laboratory confirmed cases of H1N1 flu in 11 states with one fatality as of the morning of April 30. The World Health Organization has raised its global pandemic alert level to Phase 5, which indicates human-to-human spread of the virus into at least two countries in one region, one step short of a full pandemic.
Former Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius took over as HHS secretary last week amid the country’s biggest test of its pandemic-fighting capabilities since at least 2005, and as Congress takes the first steps to try to drastically change the way healthcare is provided and paid for in this country.
When public health alarms started ringing over an influenza outbreak, the scenario was supposed to involve the avian flu, not the swine variety. Regardless, as the confirmed flu cases started mounting quickly last week—along with the death toll—the world’s public health guardians seemed on top of their game. Credit that in large part to a level of readiness resulting from intense work—and spending—these past several years, trying to stay ahead of the pandemic threat from bird flu.
Mexico reported no new deaths from swine flu overnight — more reason to be optimistic that the worst is over at the epicenter of the outbreak. But the virus keeps spreading around the world, with new cases confirmed in Europe and Asia.
A day after the World Health Organization raised its pandemic alert level to Phase 5, the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention announced that South Carolina has become the latest state to have a confirmed case of the 2009 H1N1 virus, commonly known as swine flu.
