******** please respond to discussion below with a paragraph, add citation and references 🙂 ******
One example of a global health issue is Influenza. Influenza occurs when an animal flu virus acquires the ability to infect humans and they, in turn, transmit it to other humans. There was an Influenza pandemic in 1918-19 that killed approximately 50 million to 100 million around the globe. Since that time advancements have been made in treatments, vaccinations, and understanding of the disease, but the influenza virus continues to poses a serious health threat around the world. The world today has more inhabitants than before, and a virus has more accessibility to any point on the planet. This results in a rapidly and easily virus spreading. The current vaccination is based on 1940 research, and even though is the most efficient way to protect the people from the virus, is not 100 % effective. There are a lot of strains of influenza and the virus mutate frequently. The emergence of the two distinct flu strains, that is, H1N1 (Swine flu) and the bird flu (H5N1) have increased the flu-related deaths in the past few decades According to with public health report, the federal pandemic influenza plan and public health experts predict that should the H5N1 influenza virus mutate in such a way that human-to-human transmission can easily occur, and approximately 30% of the U.S. population could develop the disease. The impact of this pandemic would quickly overwhelm the public health and health-care delivery systems in the U.S. and throughout the world. Influenza is a laboratory-reportable disease and that individuals should report the case within 24 hours to any national agency that addresses influenza. There are different organizations that provide information and assistance related to the influenza virus. In fact, World Health Organization and the CDC among other national and international agencies partner towards improving the health of the community by providing both educative and supportive functions to the community with the aim to restrict influenza spread thus reduce the flu-related mortality rates across the country and beyond. The Global Influenza Surveillance and Responses Systems (GISRS) of the World Health Organization supports the mitigation and spread of the flu virus by providing adequate vaccination. GISRS network consists of influenza designated centers across the United States among other countries primarily for influenza virus surveillance and the evaluation of the flu disease trend (Graham-Rowe, 2011).
References:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2016). Seasonal influenza. Retrieved from: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/index.htm
Gaglani, M., Pruszynski, J., Murthy, K., Clipper, L., Robertson, A., Reis, M., … & Zimmerman, R. K. (2016). Influenza vaccine effectiveness against 2009 pandemic influenza A (H1N1) virus differed by vaccine type during 2013–2014 in the United States. The Journal of infectious diseases, 213(10), 1546-1556.
Graham-Rowe, D. (2011). Epidemiology: Racing against the flu. Nature,480(7376).
Department of Health and Human Services (US) HHS pandemic influenza plan. 2005. Nov, [cited 2006 Oct 22]. Available from: URL: http://www.hhs.gov/pandemicflu/plan/pdf/HHSPandemicInfluenzaPlan.pdf.
Glaser CA, Gilliam S, Thompson WW, Dassey DE, Waterman SH, Saruwatari M, et al. Medical care capacity for influenza outbreaks, Los Angeles. Emerg Infect Dis. 2002;8:569–74. [PMC free article][PubMed]