Pandemic planning

"Offering research and evidence-based guidelines for strategic plan development, this book draws on the lessons learned over three years of pandemic preparedness exercises. Collaborating with national leaders and community stakeholders, the contributing authors examine preparedness across a variety of institutional levels and consider the issues and concerns that may arise throughout the process. The book details the threat of pandemic illness and the need and actions required for efficient and effective preparation, prevention, response, and recovery to a pandemic threat at all levels -- community, state, and regional"-- "Foreword The impact of an influenza pandemic can be measured in a variety of ways 50 million deaths in 1918 and 1919; hundreds of millions of individual cases of sickness in 1957; and an estimated three to four trillion dollars lost in global productivity in 2009. By their very nature, the characteristics and outcomes of future pandemics are extremely difficult to predict. This uncertainty, however, should not be viewed as a reason to avoid planning, but rather as a motivator to emphasize the necessity of thorough, complete, and flexible plans for the inevitable