Pandemic Flu Discussion

Post Reply New Topic

Today I attended a staff development training through work. More than half of the training was pandemic preparedness, infection control and how this will affect the Health Care system in which I work. The reason it was a huge piece of the work we did today was because we are apparently at the "alert" phase of preparing.

At the moment, it is said that we do not yet know what the next pandemic flu will be, but the H5N1 (Bird Flu) is not completely out of question. The three major questions asked when determining a pandemic are :

Is it Novel?

Is it Virulent?

Is it Contagious?

So, as far as those questions are concerned the Bird Flu meets the top two and as far as they can tell only a handful of people have reported cases where they felt it was spread by human contact, rather than from handling birds which has left them to rule it out as a possibility at the moment. They have reported that more than half of the population that has contracted this Bird Flu has died and it is difficult to say for sure whether or not it will become a different strain that will spread from person to person.

So, that said, they have stated there is no way of knowing when, which virus, how contagious, how virulent, how long before we know etc.

In 1957 the death rate for The Asian Flu was approximately 2 million people.

In 1968 the death rate for The Hong Kong Flu was approx. 750, 000

And the annual rate for the seasonal Flu is anywhere in the range of 500 000 to a million

Seasonal flu's usually affect the very young, the elderly and the fragile/ill people the worst, but this is not true of all flu viruses. Apparently one of the others primarily affected mid-age ranges between 35-40 years of age.

This will be worldwide. This is unlike SARS in that it will be a community acquired virus. People are being urged to stay home when ill, cough into their sleeves when necessary (in order to trap bugs in fibers instead of allowing them to be airborne), be conscious of washing your hands at all times (remember that hand "sanitizer" is not a good substitute for soap and if you HAVE to use it, be sure to wash with soap at least once, for every 7 sanitizer) and call your Dr. when ill.

There was a great discussion about how people generally wait a few days (if at all) before going to the Dr's, knowing that there is usually very little a Dr. can do for you when ill with a flu virus, but this will then prolong how long it will take to determine if there is a flu pandemic, putting even more people at risk.

We were prepared for the possibilities of schools/child care facilities closing and the impact it would have on everyone in our community and our employees ability to get to work. They spoke of the impact it would have on us as a health centre when there is limit access to all the other services high risk people would normally need. We were prepared for the redeployment of staff based on individual skill sets and the need to check on families, marginalized/homeless, elderly etc.

Anyone else been keeping an eye on this information?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu
The Spanish flu took many young lives. We have had talks on SARS +the potential bird flu pandemic at work. They have asked people to indicate what roles they are prepared to work in should a flu pandemic occur and they have set in place a protocol to follow.

What could be done? By the time it has a name, it will be everywhere.

Chuck in the Dino Aspie Cafe is posting about a bug spreading from Nashville, spread by humans, treated, but they are important, and are traveling by air. It has shown up in Pennsylvania by land.

The Spanish Flu took 50,000,000 in a much smaller world, killed healthy people in perfect condition in 12 hours. I have read the only thing that stopped it was winter.

The boys at FEMA spent billions because there might be an emergency someday, it was beefed up with Homeland Security, then they took seven days to get to New Orleans. 75 died in the flood, 1500 died from dehydration.

I have read several hospital emergency plans, armed Security, looked doors, only personal allowed in, till the troops clear the streets and burn the bodies.

There was no response in New Orleans, but all the roads leading in, all the waterways, were blocked by men with automatic weapons. The do have a plan to contain and kill.

In an emergency, you are on your own.

In a pandemic, the last place to go is a hospital.

People should enjoy their SARS.

Involved in Pandemic flu planning.

Worse case is a 25% infection rate over a 6 month period.

But that is not 25% infected for 6 months. When and if you catch Flu it will probably be for 2 weeks.

So in actual fact the number infected at any one time will be small.

It will all come down to exactly how contagious it is and how deadly it is.


Here is the link to theWHO Influenza page. This gives the current risks and status of Influenza on a world view.

http://www.who.int/csr/disease/avian_in ... index.html