Pandemics Death Toll
Since 1900*
1918-1919
- United States - 500,000+
- Worldwide - 40,000,000+
1957-1958
- United States - 70,000+
- Worldwide - 1-2,000,000
1968-1969
- United States - 34,000+
- Worldwide - 700,000+
*www.pandemicflu.gov
What is a Pandemic?
A pandemic is a global disease outbreak. An influenza or flu pandemic occurs when a new flu virus emerges. People have little or no immunity against it. The virus spreads easily from person-to-person, and for some it may cause serious illness, even death.
Pandemics occur every 15 to 50 years. Some past pandemics have been relatively mild; other have killed millions of people worldwide. See our Timeline of Public Health in South Carolina for more information on past disease outbreaks and pandemics in our state.
Regular seasonal flu outbreaks do not qualify as pandemics. But the novel H1N1 flu virus that first appeared in South Carolina in April 2009 does qualify as a pandemic flu because it’s a new strain of flu virus and it has quickly spread throughout the world.
Pandemics can create many other problems
In addition to the toll a pandemic can take on human health, they can stress our:
- Health care systems, because healthcare providers and hospitals must deal with a surge in patient demand
- Government, including public health and social service agencies due to demand and high rates of employee absenteeism due to illness
- Schools, which may have to cope with extended closings
- Businesses, which might have to cope with extremely high levels of absenteeism due to illness
- Emergency responders, including law enforcement
- Public utilities, who may lack the staff to provide essential services, and in worse cases,
- Mortuary operations.
Planning for pandemic flu in South Carolina
Public health officials have been working for years to plan for the kinds of disruptions that could potentially accompany a pandemic. They’ve considered the ethical dimensions, as well as the practical.
The pandemic flu plan created in recent years for South Carolina addresses:
- How public health officials and other authorities will communicate essential medical information to the public, to health care providers and to emergency responders.
- How DHEC will identify and monitor the outbreak. This activity is also known as disease surveillance.
- How vaccines will be obtained, stored and distributed to millions of people.
- How medications will be obtained, stored and dispensed.
- How public health authorities will go about making truly complex, difficult and ethical decisions (pdf) should they become necessary to protect public health. For instance, the plan looks at quarantines, release of medical information to allow for investigation of a disease source, and expansion of hospital and healthcare provider capabilities beyond their licenses to handle huge numbers of patients.
All actions discussed or outlined in the state’s pandemic plan are intended to help reduce the spread of infection and lessen the impact of pandemic flu on South Carolina’s social structure and economy while preserving personal freedoms as much as possible.
DHEC’s Office of Public Health Preparedness coordinates the agency’s pandemic planning efforts.
If, after reading the information available here, you have questions about the 2009 H1N1 vaccine,
please call 1-800-27SHOTS (1-800-277-4687).
