The Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) has released the fifth annual “Ready or Not? Protecting the Public’s Health from Disease, Disasters, and Bioterrorism” report, which found that while important progress has been made, critical areas of the nation’s emergency health preparedness effort still require attention. Among the key findings: Thirteen states do not have adequate plans to distribute emergency vaccines, antidotes, and medical supplies from the Strategic National Stockpile, twelve states do not have a disease surveillance system compatible with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s national electronic system, seven states have not purchased any portion of their federally subsidized or unsubsidized antivirals to use during a pandemic flu, and seven states and the District of Columbia lack sufficient capabilities to test for biological threats. The group ranked Illinois, Kentucky, Nebraska, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Virginia highest in public health preparedness, giving those states a perfect 10 on 10 critical preparedness measures. The full report is available on the TFAH website at http://www.healthyamericans.org/reports/bioterror07/.
In related news, TFAH recently expressed concern that $157.737 million proposed in the omnibus appropriations bill for ongoing pandemic activities at the CDC, is subject to the 1.747 percent across the board cut applied to all Labor/HHS programs in the omnibus, so the actual figure would be $154.981 million. In addition, the omnibus bill provides only $76.139 million under the Public Health and Social Services Emergency Fund (PHSSEF) for pandemic preparedness. Factoring in the across the board cut, only $74.809 million would be available for important pandemic-related programs. Government scientists working to prevent a flu pandemic in the United States say a lack of funding this year could jeopardize the pandemic preparedness program and the public’s health while also jeopardizing plans for increasing the Nation’s stockpile of medical countermeasures.