Global Planning for Flu

Advance planning and preparedness are critical to help reduce the impact of a pandemic. The guidance takes into account the lessons learned from the influenza A(H1N1) 2009 pandemic in order to create a pandemic influenza planning framework that would allow public health response efforts to be adapted for a more moderate event. WHO will use the global phases of a pandemic – Interpandemic, Alert, Pandemic, and Transition – to describe the spread of a novel influenza A virus. Different countries will face different pandemic phases at different times. The WHO guidance introduces a risk-based approach that would allow public health officials to develop flexible plans based on a national risk assessment while taking into consideration the WHO global risk assessment. To see how the WHO phases map to the CDC phases, see the table in the MMWR article “Updated Preparedness and Response Framework for Influenza Pandemics.”

Figure 1 describes the overlap risk assessments and the continuum of the global pandemic phases. (508 Version).

Chart: Figure 1 describes the overlap risk assessments and the continuum of the global pandemic phases.

Review the WHO Pandemic Influenza Risk Management (PIRM) Guidance
New! Access OpenWHO, an interactive, web-based platform that offers a series of online courses for people preparing to work in, or already working in, the areas of epidemics, pandemics, and/or health emergencies.