Articles: pandemics.
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The Milbank quarterly · Mar 2019
Access by Design, Benefits if Convenient: A Closer Look at the Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework's Standard Material Transfer Agreements.
Policy Points Securing access to pathogen samples for research purposes is crucial for pandemic preparedness and responding to infectious disease outbreaks. The Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework (PIP Framework) is the only pathogen-specific international access and benefit-sharing (ABS) instrument. This analysis reveals that during an influenza pandemic, the PIP Framework will safeguard access to virus samples but may not be as effective in delivering the associated benefits, like vaccines and antivirals, to countries in need. The PIP Framework's deficiencies must be addressed before an influenza pandemic and before this ABS model is extended to other human pathogens.
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An infectious disease outbreak such as the 2009 influenza pandemic is an unexpected demand shock to hospital emergency departments (EDs). We analysed changes in key performance metrics in (EDs) in Victoria during this pandemic to assess the impact of this demand shock. ⋯ This pandemic event caused excess demand leading to increased waiting times, did-not-wait patients and access block. Increases in admitted patients were more strongly associated with crowding than non-admitted patients during the pandemic period, so policies to divert or mitigate low-complexity non-admitted patients are unlikely to be effective in reducing ED crowding.