ABSTRACT
There are four basic phases to comprehensive emergency management: mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. Since the World Health Organization (WHO) stepped up attention to the potential of a pandemic due to highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu and President George Bush released the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza in 2005, there has been a great deal of activity. At the global level, international public health officials have been focusing their attention on surveillance efforts and the development of infrastructure that should mitigate the threat of pandemic influenza, regardless of where the threat originates. Surely, all eyes are on H5N1 and many believe we are now able to witness the genesis of the next pandemic. At the national level, government officials and public health planners are busy assembling and testing their plans. Plans are a key component of preparedness. Many of the pandemic planners that we encounter express the difficulty in pulling together a functional plan. Some are not even certain what the plan should entail and what “tools in the toolbox” are appropriate for the containment of pandemic influenza. They are often unable to state an overall goal or objective clearly and concisely.
