Essay on Influenza Pandemic Public Health Plan

One of the most virulent strains of influenza in history ravaged the world and decimated the populations around the world. Present during World War I, the 1918 strain of pandemic influenza found many opportunities to spread through the war. At the time, science wasn’t advanced enough to study the virus, much less find a cure; medical personnel were helpless when it came to fighting the disease, and so the flu went on to infect millions and kill at a rate 25 times higher than the standard.

In late spring 2009, the World Health Organization labeled the swine flu a pandemic. In October 2009, President Barack Obama declared a state of emergency when over 1,000 Americans, as well as nearly a hundred children, had died as a result of the swine flu. Unfortunately, we also faced a shortage of vaccines to deal with the outbreak. Responding to the flu outbreak was also slow. In April 2009, the United States federal government authorized production of the swine flu vaccine. Based on prior growth patterns of seasonal flu vaccines, it projected that 120 million doses

This paper will discuss the communicable disease influenza. It will discuss the causes, symptoms, and treatments, as well as the demographics of interest. It will also discuss the determinants of health and how these factors contribute to the development of influenza. Included in this paper will be information on host, agent, and environmental factors. Lastly it will explain the role of the community health nurse in caring for those affected with influenza and the role they play in education and prevention.

The influenza vaccination in not only beneficial to recipients but also those that come in contact with the individuals exposed to or at risk for contracting influenza. Health care workers are at a constant risk of exposure to various diseases and illness including influenza. An emergency such as a vaccination shortage for influenza will not only affect at risk individuals but spread rapidly to all those exposed without knowledge or a-symptomatic at time of encounter. Health care workers will be exposed in physician offices, hospitals, emergency care or urgent care centers with heightened possibility of spreading the illness (CDC, 2015). Health care workers are not limited to the obvious: physicians or nurses but also, therapists, EMS,

In the healthcare field, it is essential that workers receive the flu vaccination due to the potential to either become infected by a patient or unknowingly spreading the virus to the patient population. The state of New York requires that health care workers in not only hospitals but other medical agencies in the state “be immunized against influenza viruses as a precondition

Influenza is responsible for hospitalizations and deaths in the United States. Prevention through vaccination is one way to circumvent illnesses, hospitalizations and deaths. Those persons who were more susceptible fall into the categories of 6 months to 4 years of age and 65 years and older. According to CDC (2013), the 2012-13 influenza season was characterized as a moderately severe season based on the surveillance data. Regardless of suggestions and encouragements of schools and places of employment for individuals to be vaccinated against the flu, fewer than half the persons in the United States each year are inoculated against this disease. Influenza vaccines are now widely used to reduce the burden of annual epidemics of influenza virus infections (Cowling, et al., 2016).

The aftermath of this outbreak helped the world learn how to respond to deadly illnesses in an effective manor as well as moved the cause of science forward by striving to find a way to treat this disease. The event lead to the organizations responsible for controlling these outbreaks to grow and develop more proficient ways to battle the flu as well as many other sicknesses. Today, “international organizations such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) provide leadership in global health matters. The WHO’s preparedness plans against influenza pandemics include six levels of pandemic alert, which determine the recommended actions it should take in conjunction with the international community, governments, and industry.6” This expansion has saved millions of lives as now flu vaccines are usually available in most communities as well as treatments for nearly every ailment known. Without these organizations influence the Swine Flu epidemic could have been much more devastating along with the hundreds of other disease that could have wiped out entire populations without the intervention of these groups. The government was also changed by this as they had

Influenza, an innocent little virus that annually comes and goes, has always been a part of people’s lives. Knowing this, one would not believe that it has caused not one, not two, but three pandemics and is on its way to causing a fourth! The Spanish flu of 1918, the Asian flu of 1957, and the Hong Kong

Avian influenza is a disease that has been wreaking havoc on human populations since the 16th century. With the recent outbreak in 1997 of a new H5N1 avian flu subtype, the world has begun preparing for a pandemic by looking upon its past affects. In the 20th Century, the world witnessed three pandemics in the years of 1918, 1957, and 1968. In 1918 no vaccine, antibiotic, or clear recognition of the disease was known. Killing over 40 million in less than a year, the H1N1 strain ingrained a deep and lasting fear of the virus throughout the world. Though 1957 and 1968 brought on milder pandemics, they still killed an estimated 3 million people and presented a new

In 1976, due to an outbreak of influenza at Fort Dix, New Jersey, the United States set a precedent in immunology by attempting to vaccinate the entire population of the country against the possibility of a swine-type Influenza A epidemic. While a great many people were successfully immunized in a very short period of time, the National Influenza Immunization Program (NIIP) quickly became recognized as a failure, one reason being that the feared epidemic never surfaced at all. But this massive undertaking deserves more analysis than just a simple repudiation. For example, all evidence linked to the pathology, microbiology, and historical cycle of influenza and the outbreak at Fort Dix suggests that the reactions of the scientists and other

A lot of critical factors drive an influenza pandemic stockpiling. The costs for having influenza pandemic stockpile of drugs is relatively lesser when equated with the amount of chaos and disaster it will be created to humankind worldwide.

Why have the citizens of the United States never heard about a plan as to what would happen if there was a pandemic occurring in the U.S.? This may either be due to the fact that there is more than one plan in place by multiple government agencies such as the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the National Governors Association (NGA) or the United States has not recently gone through a pandemic with a high mortality rate. The difference between a pandemic and an epidemic is that an epidemic is a disease or virus that spreads through a certain area in a country while a pandemic is a disease or virus that spreads through more than one country. In the last fifty years, there have been many different pandemics present in the U.S.

There is an outbreak that occurred in the United States. Many local hospitals have reported a lot of patients becoming ill with high fevers , congestion , and difficulty breathing. The thing that each of the hospitalized patients had in common is that they had come into recent contact with some of the local farmers. After receiving several reports the CDC have investigators at local hospital's assessing the extent of the illness. The US Dept. of Agriculture have made a visit to a farm for an inspection in regards to multiple people and pets becoming ill. The inspector notices signs and symptoms in some of the pigs that are coughing (barking), runny nose, congestion, breathing difficulties, high fevers, nasal discharge, and a loss of appetite.

The world has experienced a total of four pandemics within the twentieth century. These pandemics, as horrific and deadly as they are, have brought so much more positive advances to our health care system and how we prepare for biological threats. Although we are in the twenty-first century and we have advanced so far in healthcare, there is still the possibility of a deadly pandemic.

Influenza is a contagious respiratory disease, so it is essential to prevent spread through healthy lifestyle habits which include prudent and frequent hand washing, covering coughs and sneezes, vaccinations, cleaning and disinfecting commonly used surfaces, not sharing personal items and handling and preparing food safely. Additionally, taking care of stress and psychological conditions, exercising regularly, and getting proper rest and nutrition are all priorities to improve general health.