The state of nation’s emergency could be the most critical and urgent situation that needs decisive government actions and decisions. This kind of situation has tested the relevance of US government’s homeland security program that has just been in the process of establishment after the tragic incident of terrorist attack on September 11th 2001. The public paranoia from the threatening and shocking terrorist’s attacks has seemed continued by the series of dreadful events that plagued the American population.
In the years of 2004 and 2005, the outbreak of the dreaded influenza infection allover America has exposed the US Federal government, specifically the Department of Health, into extreme measure of alertness in enabling the availability of antidotes. The impacts of the outbreak have found more than the effects to casualties that bear the psycho-social insecurity how the public administration could be intensively responsive and credible for such an emergencies.
During the outbreak, the shortages of needed volume of antidotes or vaccines have drawn panic throughout the US communities, aggravating the biological death toll with psychological depression. As cited, everyone have been susceptible to influenza but the tragically lasting trauma as a result of vaccine shortage was more than of the potentially lethal virus that take critical time of recovery and may not be vaccinated (Spana et. al, 2005).
This paper will account the discussion of complex issues that significantly heightened the American public awareness on how susceptibility of the country to pandemic disease could be managed by the States’ public administration programs. Thus, an independent impact evaluation has been conducted to further probe the phenomenal experience. Methodology The result of the case study conducted by the Center for Bio-security at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in Baltimore, Maryland will be utilized as part of the literature review, taking into account the issues, actors and organizational forces that have been involved in the incident.
Literature Review Brief background of the issues On October 5th 2004, the British Medicines and Healthcare Product Regulatory Agency has suspended the supply license of Chiron Corporation from Liverpool in England due failure to sterilize the vials for vaccines. The suspension of supply license has affected the supplying of anti-flu vaccines to the US markets, wherein Chiron was a leading and major supplier of estimated 46-48 million vaccine dosage requirements, aside from the leading competitor which was Aventis Pasteur (known as Sanofi Pasteur).
The insufficiencies of anti-virus vaccines have been significantly considered as a critical issue in the health security mobilization of the US Department of Health as well as the Federal government in general during the 2004-2005 “influenza outbreak”. It was accounted that the shortage of the vaccines has indicated an impasse to the US Department of Health’s management of public emergencies, and draws critical challenge to the policy decision making and public administration.