Federal Government Designates $900 Million to States for Emergency Preparation

On Tuesday, Mike Leavitt, the secretary of US Health and Human Services, announced that the department will provide $896.7 million to the states, territories, tribal governments and four major cities to enable them to prepare for unforeseen health epidemics, mass casualties inflicted by bio-terrorists, and natural disease pandemics.

The money supplied by the Health and Housing Services will go to improving the ability of local and state governments to prepare for and respond to public health emergencies. Secretary Mike Leavitt emphasized these goals by noting, "It [the funding] allows state, local, territorial, and tribal public health jurisdictions to build upon preparedness gains that have been made over the past five years of federal funding."

CDC HELPS STATES WITH EMERGENCY PREPARATION

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CD) is involved in distributing the funding which is meant to be use for preparing for naturally occurring health related epidemics like influenza and unforeseen emergencies resulting from terrorism or natural disasters.

HHS FUNDS LOCAL PANDEMIC DETECTION AND MITIGATION EFFORTS

Health and Human Services (HHS) earmarked funding for several projects that increase our ability to meet unexpected public health emergencies and that improve our ability to identify and mitigate disease pandemics in North America. The department designated $175 million for preparedness plans for an influenza pandemic. The Cities Readiness Initiative (CRI) received $57.3 million. The CRI is meant to ensure that during a public health emergency selected cities will be able to provide oral medications to one hundred percent of the affected population. The department directed $35 million to efforts to which improve the capability of local poison control centers and health providers to detect and respond to chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear events. The development and implementation of an information sharing program to collect data regarding incidents of infectious disease between American border states, Canada, and Mexico.

HHS CONTINUES COMMITMENT TO PREPARING LOCAL GOVERNMENTS AND STATES AGAINST NATURAL PANDEMICS AND TERRORISM

The funding adds to previous spending by the federal government to prepare local governments and states for national public health emergencies. Last month, HHS made $430 million available to hospitals and facilities willing to strengthen their ability to respond to bio-terrorism, infectious disease, natural disasters that cause massive casualties. These recent funds are in addition to the $7 billion dollars given to the states by the Health and Human Services department since 2002.

Source:
Health and Human Services Press Release, http://www.hhs.gov/news
The CDC Fiscal Year 2007 funding, http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2007pres/07/pr20070717c.html