Outpatient influenza antivirals in a distributed data network for influenza surveillance.

Electronic data collected from routine health care can be used for public health surveillance. To examine the Sentinel System, a distributed data network of health plans, as a source for influenza surveillance, we compared trends in outpatient prescription dispensings of influenza antivirals in Sentinel to trends in CDC's ILINet and NREVSS systems over five seasons. There were 2 102 885 dispensed prescriptions of oseltamivir capsules, 494 188 of oseltamivir powder, and 7955 of zanamivir.

Regulatory underpinnings of Global Health security: FDA's roles in preventing, detecting, and responding to global health threats.

In February 2014, health officials from around the world announced the Global Health Security Agenda, a critical effort to strengthen national and global systems to prevent, detect, and respond to infectious disease threats and to foster stronger collaboration across borders. With its increasing global roles and broad range of regulatory responsibilities in ensuring the availability, safety, and security of medical and food products, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is engaged in a range of efforts in support of global health security. This article provides an overview of FDA's global health security roles, focusing on its responsibilities related to the development and use of medical countermeasures (MCMs) for preventing, detecting, and responding to global infectious disease and other public health emergency threats.

Meeting the challenges of medical countermeasure development.

Despite substantial investments since the events of 2001, much work remains to prepare the nation for a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear (CBRN) attack or to respond to an emerging infectious disease threat. Following a 2010 review of the US Public Health Emergency Medical Countermeasures Enterprise, FDA launched its Medical Countermeasures initiative (MCMi) to facilitate the development and availability of medical products to counter CBRN and emerging disease threats. As a regulatory agency, FDA has a unique and critical part to play in this national undertaking.

Radiation injury after a nuclear detonation: medical consequences and the need for scarce resources allocation.

A 10-kiloton (kT) nuclear detonation within a US city could expose hundreds of thousands of people to radiation. The Scarce Resources for a Nuclear Detonation Project was undertaken to guide community planning and response in the aftermath of a nuclear detonation, when demand will greatly exceed available resources. This article reviews the pertinent literature on radiation injuries from human exposures and animal models to provide a foundation for the triage and management approaches outlined in this special issue.