H1N1 - vaccine, lessons learned

Reuters has posted an article saying there are 71 million doses of H1N1 vaccine left in the U.S. That's right, readers, million. Holy cow! (Or should I say chicken... get it?)

And here is a USA Today editorial on 5 lessons to be learned from the pandemic. Some points are well-taken; for example, the feds can't do it all. State and local health departments and other responders are vital to the fabric of our public health infrastructure and are critical to maintain in order to bolster preparedness.

Here are lessons learned from Jeffrey Levi, of Trust for America's Health, as posted on The Huffington Post. He, again, mentions public health department resources and the need to increase resources to be able to adequately respond to a situation such as the H1N1 pandemic.

Overall, the county is significantly more prepared to respond to a pandemic now than we were a few short years ago, but there are still major gaps in our core public health capabilities that must be addressed if we're going to be able to protect the American public from future threats.

Here are lessons learned from CIDRAP, the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. This article also highlights infrastructure and capacity but touches on risk factors for pregnant women and obese populations as well.

And here is a previously-posted Op-Ed by Richard Wenzel in the NY Times about what has been learned from the H1N1 pandemic.

Happy reading, and feel free to post your own lessons learned!