Global Planning

Advance planning and preparedness are critical to help reduce the impact of a pandemic. The World Health Organization (WHO) guidance document “Pandemic Influenza Risk Management” outlines an “all-hazards” emergency risk management approach to pandemic influenza risk management. The guidance takes into account the lessons learned from the influenza A(H1N1) 2009 pandemic in order to create a pandemic influenza planning framework that would allow public health response efforts to be adapted for a more moderate event. WHO will use the global phases of a pandemic – Interpandemic, Alert, Pandemic, and Transition – to describe the spread of a novel influenza A virus. Different countries will face different pandemic phases at different times. The WHO guidance introduces a risk-based approach that would allow public health officials to develop flexible plans based on a national risk assessment while taking into consideration the WHO global risk assessment. To see how the WHO phases map to the CDC phases, see the table in the MMWR article “Updated Preparedness and Response Framework for Influenza Pandemics.”

Figure 1 describes the overlap risk assessments and the continuum of the global pandemic phases.(508 Version).

• Visit the World Health Organization’s (WHO) website for information on public health preparedness for a flu pandemic.
• Review the WHO Pandemic Influenza Risk Management (PIRM) Guidance
• Review WHO’s Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework to improve pandemic response.
• Read WHO’s recommended pandemic flu preparation in Responding to the Avian Influenza Pandemic Threat: Recommended Strategic Actions[ 113 KB, 22 Pages] .
• Read WHO’s summary report on the antigenic and genetic characteristics of zoonotic influenza viruses and candidate vaccine viruses developed for potential use in human vaccines
• Access the WHO Strategic Partnership Portal, which contains the national plans for influenza pandemic preparedness.  Plans are searchable by WHO regions, countries, and when the plan was published.  It also contains an interactive map and pie chart that illustrates the status of the national pandemic preparedness plans.
• New! Access OpenWHO, an interactive, web-based platform that offers a series of online courses for people preparing to work in, or already working in, the areas of epidemics, pandemics, and/or health emergencies.