Vaccine Prioritization During an Influenza Pandemic

October 2007

The CIP Program has examined many issues and challenges that the United States may face should there be an influenza pandemic. CIP Program researchers have extensively reviewed the Department of Health and Human Services’ Influenza Plan as well as President Bush’s National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza. The danger of an influenza pandemic creates several critical issues and questions about the United States’ preparation and response to a pandemic. One important issue is vaccine prioritization. If a pandemic were to occur in the United States, there may not be enough of readily available vaccines to vaccinate the entire U.S. population. The CIP Program invited several leading experts to submit an essay for its monograph discussing various aspects of vaccine prioritization.

The monograph features articles by leading experts, representing the multifaceted issues an influenza pandemic creates. More specifically, the authors examined several different aspects to the monumental problem of vaccine prioritization. Authors include Dr. Colleen Hardy of the CIP Program; Dr. Peter Leitner, President of the Higgins Counterterrorism Research Center; Michelle Milgrim, Assistant Director for Patient Care Services with Fairfax County’s Health Department; and Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, Chair of the Department of Bioethics at the Clinical Center at the National Institutes of Health, and Dr. Alan Wertheimer, Senior Research Scholar with the Department of Clinical Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health.