Epidemiology & Disease Prevention - Cerro Gordo County Department of Public Health

Disease Prevention

Preparing for a Pandemic

National expert spoke to many North Iowans about the importance of planning ahead for a pandemic flu.

It is difficult to predict when the next influenza pandemic will occur or how severe it will be. However, national experts on the subject say it will happen. It's just a matter of when it will happen and how severe it will be.

Dr. Michael Osterholm, PhD, MPH

Because this threat exists, officials at the Cerro Gordo County Department of Public Health are taking steps to plan for this event. To help educate Public Health preparedness partners of the potential threat, the Cerro Gordo County Department of Public Health hosted "Preparing for a Panedmic," an educational forum.

Among those who attended the forum were people who work in hospitals, emergency services, law enforcement, fire departments, public health, daycares, businesses, media, elected officials and many others.

The guest speaker was Michael Osterholm, PhD, MPH., a nationally recognized expert in pandemic influenza.

His PowerPoint presentation Pandemic Influenza; A Current Perspective is available for your review. If you do not have Power Point on your computer, it is free to download from the Microsoft PowerPoint website.

Learn more about Pandemic Flu and how you can take simple steps today to prepare.

About the Speaker: Dr. Osterholm is director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP), associate director of the Department of Homeland Security's National Center for Food Protection and Defense (NCFPD), and professor in the School of Public Health, University of Minnesota. He is also a member of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Sciences. In June 2005 Dr. Osterholm was appointed by Michael Leavitt, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), to the newly established National Science Advisory Board on Biosecurity.

From 2001 through early 2005, Dr. Osterholm, in addition to his role at CIDRAP, served as a Special Advisor to then-HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson on issues related to bioterrorism and public health preparedness. He was also appointed to the Secretary's Advisory Council on Public Health Preparedness. On April 1, 2002, Dr. Osterholm was appointed by Thompson to be his representative on the interim management team to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). With the appointment of Dr. Julie Gerberding as director of the CDC on July 3, 2002, Dr. Osterholm was asked by Thompson to assist Dr. Gerberding on his behalf during the transition period. He filled that role through January 2003.

Previously, Dr. Osterholm served for 24 years (1975-1999) in various roles at the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH), the last 15 as state epidemiologist and chief of the Acute Disease Epidemiology Section. While at the MDH, Osterholm and his team were leaders in the area of infectious disease epidemiology. He has led numerous investigations of outbreaks of international importance, including foodborne diseases, the association of tampons and toxic shock syndrome (TSS), the transmission of hepatitis B in healthcare settings, and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection in healthcare workers. In addition, his team conducted numerous studies regarding infectious diseases in child-care settings, vaccine-preventable diseases (particularly Haemophilus influenzae type b and hepatitis B), Lyme disease, and other emerging infections. They were also among the first to call attention to the changing epidemiology of foodborne diseases.

Dr. Osterholm has been an international leader on the critical concern regarding our preparedness for an influenza pandemic. His recent invited papers in the journals Foreign Affairs, the New England Journal of Medicine, and Nature detail the threat of an influenza pandemic and steps we must take to better prepare for that event. Dr. Osterholm has also been an international leader on the growing concern regarding the use of biological agents as catastrophic weapons targeting civilian populations. In that role, he served as a personal advisor to the late King Hussein of Jordan. Dr. Osterholm provides a comprehensive and pointed review of America's current state of preparedness for a bioterrorism attack in his New York Times best-selling book, Living Terrors: What America Needs to Know to Survive the Coming Bioterrorist Catastrophe.