Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Institute of Medicine to weigh in on PPE for influenza

We’ve blogged extensively about the discordance between CDC and WHO guidance on the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) while caring for H1N1 patients in healthcare settings. You can read our posts on this here, here, here and here.

Looks like IOM is now going to weigh in. You can find their project scope (or “charge”) here, along with links to the committee membership. The project specifies “novel H1N1”, but that seems very silly to me. No robust data exist to suggest that transmission of the novel H1N1 differs in any substantive way from that of seasonal influenza. So any conclusions or recommendations that come from this committee should be applicable to all influenza viruses, not just the “novel H1N1”.

The ad hoc committee has to report its findings to CDC by September 1st. So what do you think the likelihood is that we’ll be using N95s for care of all patients with seasonal influenza, every year?

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