Washington Post: Interview, October 9, 2005

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Washington Post: Interview, October 9, 2005

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washingtonpost.com
Flu Plan Leaves Many Decisions at Local Level
U.S. Preparedness Draft Also Calls for Unprecedented Cooperation, Expert Says

By David Brown and Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, October 9, 2005; A13
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01258.html

Excerpts include: (For full article, go to link above)
[snip]

"There have been tremendous improvements in the plan even over the last week to 10 days," Osterholm said. In particular, he said, the most recent version emphasizes the likely prolonged effects of a flu pandemic and the need for unprecedented cooperation between the government and the business sector for more than a year.

"It is very much in flux now," he said. "Up until recently, it has been a plan that was handling this [event] much more like an earthquake or a hurricane. But it is not something that occurs over a very short period of time and then we go into the recovery phase. A pandemic will literally unfold, like a slow-moving tsunami, over 12 to 18 months."

[snip]

"Basically, cities and states are going to have to shoulder a lot of this burden of response on their own. There is no other choice. When you have all 50 states, every major city, every county and every hospital in crisis -- the federal government can't address all of that," Osterholm said. "Every place is going to need resources and expertise at the same time, and in fact every country in the world is going to need those things."

[snip]

In describing what Osterholm called "the upper bounds of what a pandemic could look like," the plan describes potential shortages of medicines for non-influenza illnesses, disruptions in the delivery of food and conceivably a lack of caskets and crematorium space.

Among the many critical supplies that hospitals and localities would need to have are masks, gloves and other protective equipment for nurses, physicians and first responders, who would be expected to have exposure month after month to people ill with influenza. They would be expected to be among the first to get access to short supplies of vaccine against a pandemic flu strain, or to prophylactic drugs. .....

For Full article, go to: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01258.html
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