Millions of dollars were spent on pandemic planning and stockpiling of masks, hand sanitizers and antiviral medications.\u00a0 The “Swine Flu” emerged in Mexico and soon spread to the United States via air travelers.\u00a0 While the 2009 H1N1 virus killed an unusually high number of children compared to seasonal flu, there were not enough dead children in one spot to stir intense national interest in the organism.\u00a0 It is now 2011 and many are breathing a sigh of relief, “we lived through the pandemic”. \u00a0Did we? Technically it met the definition of pandemic but at some point in the future a more virulent strain will emerge. Is your organization ready to stay operational and meet your client needs while keeping staff and their family’s safe?<\/p>\n
If this is not enough to make you dust off your old pandemic plans and take those lessons learned to heart, consider studies coming out of China where they are concerned about the recombination of the swine flu H1N1 virus and the H9N2 virus, creating yet another influenza virus for which we have no vaccine.\u00a0 Out of the roughly 125 new virus they made by combing the 2009 pandemic strain H1N1 and the H9N2 strain (approximately 25% of the Chinese population will test sero-positive for exposure to this strain), 8 showed qualities resembling the 1918 influenza strain that killed roughly 650,000 Americans.<\/p>\n
I am curious, have your communities, health departments and emergency management agencies fallen asleep on this continuing threat?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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