Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Swine (H1N1) Flu

Local, state, national and international agencies have organized resources to keep the public well informed about swine flu.
Local
Harris County Public Health & Environmental Services (HCPHES) has created a Swine and Pandemic Flu Resources page to provide information for businesses, healthcare providers, first responders, educators, and the public.

State
The Texas Department of Health Services also has an extensive listing of resources on its swine flu page including information for professionals and news releases about precautions such as school closures.

National
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has a wide variety of frequently updated multi-media links about flu/swine flu (now called by them H1N1 flu).

International
The World Health Organization provides constant updates about the threat of an influenza pandemic.

Commercial Vendors
EBSCO Publishing announced that its DynaMed is providing free swine flu information to health care providers and institutions throughout the world. DynaMed's Swine Influenza resource helps medical care providers stay current "with recommendations for monitoring, diagonosing, and treating patients with flu-like illnesses."
Gale Cengage Learning is providing free access to dozens of eBooks in Gale Virtual Reference Library and to its newly created Swine Flu Portal in Global Issues in Context which is updated daily.

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Latest Updates
CDC frequent updates about H1N1 has a comprehensive list of links about H1N1 Virus plus the latest updates including the 5/5/09 update about recommendations concerning closing schools.

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5/4/09 Links for special populations/situations in addition to the ones listed several days ago are:
First Responders

Texas and Area Cases