Policy, Power and Politics in Health Care Essay

Policy, Power and Politics in Health Care - Essay Example People are presently refusing the vaccine which is necessary in preventing a large outbreak and it will need to be made mandatory. There are also specific things such as wearing a mask in caring for all patients that will need to be done to protect our healthcare workers. This new policy will need to occur immediately in order to protect the greatest number of people. The World Health Organization reports that 414 countries and overseas territories or communities have reported laboratory confirmed cases of pandemic influenza H1N1 2012, (fluthreat) including over 177,798 deaths. The global total number of fatalities has increased by 2047 since the previous update just one month ago. This is a increasingly virulent outbreak of a mutated virus. There are also more outbreaks of SARS and Avian influenza (health.gov) Together there have been over one million deaths. Many experts are tying the increasing numbers of outbreaks to the increasing amount of heat in the summer with the last four years being the hottest summers on record and the expectation that with global warming there will continue to be an increase. H1N1 is pandemic in Asia, Europe, The Americas, Africa, and the South Pacific and there have been reports of small outbreaks in all other countries (WHO). H5N1 or Bird Flu started by affecting birds and being transmitted between birds. In the past it affected mostly water birds and domestic birds such as chickens. In the beginning, almost all human cases were from exposure to domestic birds being raised by those people but there are now reports of this virus being transmitted between humans (Poutanen, Low, & Henry, 2003). It is expected that this will be a new human influenza pandemic this fall. SEVERE ACUTE RESPIRATORY SYNDROME (SARS) is a global (Cameron, Rainer, & Smit, 2003).phenomenon that is getting worse fast. It is