More than half of US states are underprepared to face an infectious disease outbreak, according to a report from Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, but there are steps they can take to up their preparedness.
The report offers the following eight tips to help states become more prepared for outbreaks.
- Increase resources so every state can maintain epidemiology and laboratory abilities that are needed during outbreaks
- Update surveillance to occur in real time and be sharable across communities and health systems
- Incentivize the development of new vaccines or treatments and make sure they are distributable
- Decrease antibiotic overuse and increase vaccination rates
- Improve the ability for health systems to prepare for threats like an inundation of patients during an outbreak or the containment of an infectious organism
- Strengthen efforts and processes to reduce healthcare-associated infections
- Put strong measures in place to contain the hepatitis C epidemic
- Adopt strategies to end AIDS in every city and state