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Report Recommends Whom to Sacrifice During a Pandemic
by
findingDulcinea Staff
A new report in the journal Chest recommends which groups not to treat if health care has to be rationed during a pandemic.
30-Second Summary
A group of physicians have created guidelines specifying which people to avoid treating during a pandemic, or a global epidemic of a disease such as the flu. The guidelines are to be published in this month’s Chest, the American College of Chest Physicians’ journal.
According to The Associated Press: “The idea is to try to make sure that scarce resources—including ventilators, medicine and doctors and nurses—are used in a uniform, objective way, task force members said.”
Groups the study recommends not treating, according to AP, include people over 85; people with “severe trauma”; patients over the age of 60 who have been severely burned; those with severe mental impairment, such as advanced Alzheimer’s disease; and people with a severe chronic disease.
A virus found in birds, H5N1 has infected and killed more than 200 people around the world in the past few years, leading to concerns about a pandemic and planning for such a possibility.
The guidelines won praise from a paramedic who runs the blog Avian Flu Diary.
“Having guidelines spelled out, and endorsed by major universities, medical centers, and government agencies is an important step in our pandemic preparedness,” wrote FLA_MEDIC.
According to The Associated Press: “The idea is to try to make sure that scarce resources—including ventilators, medicine and doctors and nurses—are used in a uniform, objective way, task force members said.”
Groups the study recommends not treating, according to AP, include people over 85; people with “severe trauma”; patients over the age of 60 who have been severely burned; those with severe mental impairment, such as advanced Alzheimer’s disease; and people with a severe chronic disease.
A virus found in birds, H5N1 has infected and killed more than 200 people around the world in the past few years, leading to concerns about a pandemic and planning for such a possibility.
The guidelines won praise from a paramedic who runs the blog Avian Flu Diary.
“Having guidelines spelled out, and endorsed by major universities, medical centers, and government agencies is an important step in our pandemic preparedness,” wrote FLA_MEDIC.
Headline Links: Triage in a pandemic, countries hold drills
The pandemic triage report, which appears in the journal Chest, is a “political minefield and legal minefield,” says Lawrence Gostin, a public health law expert at Georgetown University, in an AP interview. Though rationing would be a reality in a pandemic, he said, “there are some real ethical concerns here.”
Source: The Associated Press
In Bali, Indonesia, 5,000 people took part in a drill simulating the response to a large-scale bird flu outbreak. Approximately half the worldwide bird flu deaths have occurred in Indonesia, where 107 people have died, according to the International Herald Tribune. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention paid for the drill.
Source: International Herald Tribune
Opinion & Analysis: Good step
The blog, Avian Flu Diary, is written by a paramedic in Florida who says, “While I applaud the creation of this triage list, and appreciate the difficult decisions that its creators had to make, I suspect we will need further guidance in the face of a severe pandemic.”
Source: Avian Flu Diary
Related Topics: Bird flu, pandemics and their differences
This findingDulcinea article about bird flu vaccine offers in-depth background on the bird flu, explains the history of deadly pandemics and has links to U.S. plans for such a disaster.
Source: findingDulcinea
The World Health Organization explains that influenza pandemics and bird flu are not the same thing. The bird flu, as its name suggests, is found in birds. Influenza pandemics are flu viruses that have adapted to affect humans and can spread rapidly across borders. This piece offers other information about influenza and pandemics.
Source: WHO
Between 2003 and April 2008, there were 382 confirmed human cases of the H5N1 virus in 14 countries throughout Asia and the Middle East. Those 382 cases caused 241 deaths, according to the WHO.
Source: WHO
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