Is The Tennessee Governor 's Task Force On Disaster Preparedness For Pandemics?

Since 1878, the US Public Health System has been collecting information on infectious conditions for the purpose of early identification and control of massive outbreaks, including, when necessary, instituting quarantines

Because of the uncertainties and evolving nature of infectious diseases, outbreaks can cause substantial fear in communities and in the general public. Such is the case with the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic in 2003. It was the first serious infectious disease of the twenty first century and questions about its origin and treatment greatly outnumbered the answers.

Infectious epidemics and pandemics have happened all through mankind's history. “They remain the prime cause of death worldwide and will not be conquered during our lifetimes.” The flu of 1918 was one of the deadliest epidemics in history. “It infected an estimated 500 million people worldwide–about one-third of the planet’s population at the time–and killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million victims. More than 25 percent of the U.S. population became sick, and some 675,000 Americans died during the pandemic.” No one knew how the virus spread, there were no antibiotics to fight it, and no flu shots to prevent it. In the final year of World War I, it struck terror in the hearts of people all across Europe and left more death in its wake than the combined military actions of the combatants. “It killed more Americans in a few months than World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the

Communication is essential between health care facilities and the CDC. For example, the facilities experience an emergency and follow certain quarantine protocols and alert the local public health department and the CDC. The CDC organizes secure transmission tactics to merge and notify public health officials at local, state, and federal levels. The institute deploys scientific and logistical proficiency, personnel, and vital medical resources to the area of the emergency. The CDC (2012) explains the implementation of the essential medical assets for protection of communities in the state of an emergency:

I would like to propose that the World Health Organization takes a more active role in this area and create a more sophisticated quick response branch that embeds personnel in an effective manner. This will take much logistical planning and preparedness, perhaps the successes could be used analogously in this country to strengthen FEMA’s responses.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, coordinate efforts in conjunction with states and other partnersto offer a system of health surveillance, which would monitor and prevent disease outbreaks, which includes bioterrorism. The goal of the agency is to implement strategies to prevent diseases as well as maintain national health statistics. Another role of the CDC is to safeguard against international disease transmission, this is vital as the agency has personnel located several countries outside the United States. Looking at the agency’s core functions, examining influences in the workplace, and identifying roles of the agency personnel is vital to

In a response to the polio outbreak of 1916, Dr. Haven Emerson, the Health Commissioner for New York City, stated: “we have learned little that is new about the disease, but much that is old about ourselves.” The meaning of this has to do with the ideology that no matter the era, people have a common response to the outbreak of contagious disease. Human nature supplies us as humans with a common reaction to dealing with disease, and it is one that can be seen during the Black Death, polio epidemics, and ebola epidemics, as well as many other epidemics. These responses can be both positive and negative, and often have to do with containment of the disease, preventative measures - which may or may not be effective; and scapegoating. Although there may be individualized responses for each of these diseases, the way in which the health-care officers and the public handle the outbreak of disease generally follows the same pattern overall.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more commonly known as the CDC, is a major governmental department serving the country in healthcare. Per their official mission statement, The CDC “serves as the national focus for developing and applying disease prevention and control, environmental health, and health promotion and health education activities designed to improve the health of the people of the United States” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). Most citizens may think of the CDC in situations not unlike the Ebola or Zika outbreaks, or even in the outlandish ideas of a virus bringing people back from the dead. These Centers across the United States survey disease outbreak,

State and federal agencies are involved in this matter and taking it very seriously. They believe this is a critical health care emergency. Dr. Jasen Kunz of the National Center for Environmental Health and Dr. Claressa Lucas of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases will be leading a team of one hundred and fifty state officials to

The opportunity cost of doing too little to stem this pandemic is apparent to many, but not, it would seem, to those who need to take hard and firm policy decisions to create healthier environments in schools, homes, hospitals and workplaces. We also need to ensure funding for quality treatment is available and accessible to all to prevent or delay

In 1983, a disease known as CNSB-1 was spotted in South America. By 1985 the disease has traveled to north america by airplane. When 1990 came around, every major city has been affected. Quarantine zones were established in the poorest parts or town. The disease was cured in 1995 but it still claimed the lives of 49,920,000 people in america. Progress had slowed down to a crawl and the economy was left in shambles after the U.S government put all of it’s resources in destroying CNSB-1 before it destroyed their nation. 1998 comes along and the quarantine zones are still around, only now filled with a new type or sickness.Terrorist gangs inhabit them and live by randomly raiding surrounding communities. For those who live in such areas, the only

Propose any new/novel solutions that might be effective in control and prevention of disease. Include variables and demographics that make efforts to reduce transmission in this geographic area more difficult and how you might work to resolve them.

The ability to contribute to designing prevention and control strategies to prevent endemic or epidemic transmission in the United States was intriguing. As a NACCHO Policy Scholar with the Infectious Disease department, I was thrilled to work on two exciting public health projects; the Flu Near You and HIV/AIDS Policy Initiative Project. Both projects are in line with my areas of interest as a Public health practitioner and included a review of evidenced based literature to understand effective strategies and interventions that could be adopted in these projects.

Protecting the public’s health historically has been a state and local responsibility. However, the growing threat of bioterrorism has highlighted the importance of a strong public health infrastructure to the nation’s homeland security and has focused increased attention on the preparedness of the public health system (Frist, 2011). Since the 2001 anthrax attacks Congress has passed new legislation to increase the strength of the nation’s public health system thus the funding has also rapidly increased to meet the potential demand. There is an ongoing debate however, as to what level of contribution local, state, and federal agency’s feel is an appropriate level of ongoing public health investments.

This paper defines and explains the six core functions of epidemiology: Public health surveillance, field investigation, analytic studies, evaluations, linkages, and policy development. The core functions of epidemiology lay down a foundation on which epidemiologists can begin to work from. This paper will look at the benefits of incorporating all six of these functions into a working plan when health officials, medical personnel, first responders, etc., encounter a disease or illness that needs to be identified, treated and contained.