American Academy of Disaster Medicine's (AADM) President Comments on U.S. Public Health System, Discusses Swine Flu Infection and ...( The Presiden...),Health

The President of the American Academy of Disaster Medicine's (AADM), Gary Klein, MD, MPH, MBA, CHS-V, provides commentary and analysis from a disaster medicine perspective on the recent swine flu outbreak. Klein's comments include: an explanation of why improvements are needed to the U.S. public health system to manage a widespread outbreak of any virus or pathogen; how disaster medicine specialists are helping other health care providers; and what the public needs to know about the virus, including preventive efforts.

Washington, DC (PRWEB) April 28, 2009 -- The emerging details regarding the evolving global outbreak of the swine flu is continuing to demand the attention of clinicians, public health, and government officials across the U.S. According to Gary M. Klein, MD, MPH, MBA, CHS-V, President of the American Academy of Disaster Medicine (AADM), "The U.S. public health system needs to be better prepared to cope with a potentially deadly outbreak of swine flu, or any other serious infectious disease."

Klein explains, "Detection, screening, and containment of this disease are very difficult. With the number of primary care providers at an all time low, it is likely that many hospital emergency rooms and urgent care centers could be overwhelmed by sick and "worried well" patients. Such a development would exacerbate the overcrowded conditions faced by many of these facilities on a daily basis." In addition, Klein strongly urges that families stock up on essential food, water, and medication items for at least 10 days.

AADM is assisting its colleagues with printed materials as well as training efforts with various state and local health-related entities. The Academy's primary concern is to prevent a surge of patients into local emergency rooms causing them to be overwhelmed during a period of epidemic and/or disaster.

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