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Different focus identified for mitigating pandemics
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The inability to identify individual cases during the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic likely hindered response, according to the findings in a paper published online.
Researchers from the Melbourne School of Population Health, at The University of Melbourne, Australia, reported that during the pandemic “strategies designed to limit community transmission, such as antiviral deployment, were largely ineffective due to both feasibility constraints and the generally mild nature of disease, resulting in incomplete case ascertainment.”
The researchers noted that two markers — visibility and transmissibility — should be the focus of determining whether a pandemic can be controlled.
James M. McCaw
They noted a variety of factors that lead to public health officials not being able to identify individual cases — including that although the 2009 pandemic strain caused more influenza illness than years before, the disease was relatively mild in presentation, and diagnostics were not always as specific or sensitive as needed.
The researchers said that strategies that do not rely on the identification of cases may prove relatively more effective.
“As governments re-evaluate pandemic preparedness plans, our findings highlight that recommendations for the use of antivirals and other interventions should be tailored to the unfolding epidemiological circumstances,” James M. McCaw, PhD, told Infectious Disease News.
For more information:
James M. McCaw, PhD, can be reached at jamesm@unimelb.edu.au.
Disclosure: McCaw reports no relevant financial disclosures.
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