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Pandemic plans

Posted at 10:45 AM on January 30, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Health

The state's Web site that outlines the ethical considerations of a pandemic flu has now gone live.

The report, called For the Good of Us All: Ethically Rationing Health Resources in Minnesota in a Severe Influenza Pandemic, is available here.

Among the items in it:

  • Thirty percent of Minnesotans will get the flu during the pandemic.

  • Minnesota will have enough antivirals to treat 21 percent of Minnesotans. It the duration or dosage is doubled, it'll be 10 percent.

  • The state has stockpiled 2.4 million respirators.

  • The notion of age-based rationing as the most controversial for the panel that devised the framework.

  • 172,000 people will be hospitalized.

  • The pandemic will last two years.

  • Morgues and mortuary services will be overwhelmed.

  • The U.S. GDP will drop by around 5 percent.

  • The first goal is to make sure that no group suffers more deaths than another.

  • The panel rejected social value (race, gender, education, religion or citizenship),quality of life, duration of benefit (with the exception of persons who are imminently and irreversibly dying) and first-come, first-served as methods for rationing health care.

  • Suggested considerations for who gets resources in the event of rationing are: exposure to one of the earliest cases of influenza or to a contained outbreak;risk of exposure; risk of influenza-related mortality and serious morbidity; key role in supporting basic health care, public health, public safety or other critical functions; risk of transmitting influenza to persons at high risk of flu-related mortality; and possibly age.

    Comments (3)

    I was at the first summit meeting on this subject back in 2005.

    We talked a lot about what happened in 1918-1919, when the so-called "Spanish Influenza" hit Minnesota. Scary.

    Even more scary: in many ways, we are no better equiped to handle a pandemic today as they were in 1918.

    Many Minnesotans fled the cities to seek safety from the disease in rural MN. Not surprisingly, some carried the virus with them, packing the small rural hospitals and overtaxing the system.

    Posted by Bob Moffitt | January 30, 2009 11:31 AM

    Pandemic shmandemic that's what I say.

    Posted by Paul | January 30, 2009 12:44 PM

    This topic has been discussed seriously amongst public health for quite a few years, not just '05. I don't wish for this to come across as though MDH only just started thinking of it.

    The Great Influenza, by John M. Barry, is a fantastic, just fantastic review of the '18-'20 pandemic. It looks at both the social situation and then-state-of-the-art medical training. It's an engaging read, and is aimed at the general public.

    Will this ever happen again? (paul's pandemic schmandemic) ... I hope not. However, like plans for other public health crises, we are better off planning ahead of time. The U.Minnesota's School of Public Health has a Center for Infectious Disease Research and Polich (CIDRAP), which has more information, if this of interest to you. http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/

    If you want something that is a significant risk to "Homeland Security" - infectious diseases are it. Money spent on this type of planning is just as well spent as other anti-terrorism projects. I've participated in both, from my previous professional experience.

    Posted by Elizabeth T | January 30, 2009 2:30 PM

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