Pandemic preparation faulted
omaha.com
WASHINGTON — The federal government’s preparedness for the H1N1 flu pandemic that has killed more than 1,000 people nationwide was inadequate and incomplete, a House subcommittee said Tuesday.
Both Democratic and Republican members of the subcommittee stopped short of blaming the Obama administration, but they made it clear that they expect improved handling of the pandemic soon.
The hearing by the Homeland Security subcommittee on Emerging Threats, Cybersecurity & Science and Technology followed President Barack Obama’s declaration last week that the flu outbreak is a national emergency, a procedural move that allows faster treatment.
“Our early warning and detection systems were inadequate,” said Rep. Yvette Clark, D-N.Y., the subcommittee’s chairwoman. “Some key planning activities were incomplete; we didn’t have a good approach to provide health care under pandemic conditions; and levels of preparedness for pandemic influenza were unclear. Unfortunately, our failure to develop these systems, activities and policies cost us during the response.”
Officials from the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency testified that federal agencies are aggressively monitoring and responding to an illness that’s being heavily reported in 46 states.
However, the agency representatives acknowledged that the federal government had to adjust its response because it had been preparing since 2005 to combat avian, or bird, flu, not the newer H1N1 strain, also known as swine flu.
“We learned this past spring that much of what actually occurred in the H1N1 outbreak did not align with prior avian flu planning,” the agency representatives said collectively in written testimony.
Administration officials said in July that companies could make up to 120 million doses of the vaccine by mid-October. But only 16.5 million doses have become available so far. |
