Governor Announces Georgia as Recipient of Pandemic Flu Preparedness Funds

ATLANTA— Governor Sonny Perdue announced today that Georgia has been awarded $2 million dollars in federal funds for pandemic flu preparedness to help strengthen the state's capacity to respond to a pandemic influenza outbreak.

“Because a potential flu pandemic is an alarming scenario that we are determined to guard against, it is important that we recognize the potential threat and plan to the best of our ability,” said Governor Sonny Perdue. “The funds that we were awarded today will help our state to remain a step ahead of this potential crisis and ensure a safer and healthier Georgia.”

The funds will be managed by the Department of Human Resources, Division of Public Health, Office of Preparedness and will reinforce on-going efforts to prepare hospitals and the entire medical community in Georgia to better handle a pandemic.

According to projections from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), at least 2.7 million Georgians may become ill during a worst-case pandemic and as many as 297,000 would need to be hospitalized.

“The additional funding will provide our nation’s health care community with a means to continue planning, training and acquiring needed equipment for an effective pandemic response,” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said. “It will also help keep the momentum we have generated over the past year in this important public health area.”

These funds will be use to reevaluate the resources that hospitals in Georgia may need during a pandemic. Over the last year the Office of Preparedness, Hospital Preparedness Program, has purchased 4,000 medical disaster beds, 2,000 emergency resuscitators and, on August 30th, issued an order to purchase 200 transport ventilators.

Last year, with the assistance of the Georgia Hospital Association, 100 percent of acute care hospitals in Georgia completed a Surge Capacity Planning project to determine their maximum ability to respond to a Pandemic and additional needed resources. Last November 129 of Georgia’s acute care hospitals participated simultaneously in a 3-day pandemic flu exercise, the largest Pandemic Influenza hospital exercise conducted in the country.