KHI NEWS SERVICE
WASHINGTON, D.C., July 17
Health and Humans Services Secretary Mike Leavitt today announced the department will provide another $896.7 million to states, territories, and four metropolitan areas to improve their ability to respond to public health emergencies.
“The funding represents another step in our nation’s effort to increase our state and local public health preparedness and emergency response capabilities,” Leavitt said. “It allows state, local, territorial, and tribal public health jurisdictions to build upon preparedness gains that have been made over the past five years of federal funding.”
HHS’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is coordinating the funding to be used for preparedness and response to all-hazards public health emergencies including terrorism, pandemic influenza, and other naturally-occurring public health emergencies.
The funding includes:
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$175 million to assist public health departments with pandemic influenza planning.
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$57.3 million to support the Cities Readiness Initiative. CRI is designed to ensure that selected cities provide oral medications during a public health emergency to 100 percent of their affected populations.
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$35 million to improve early detection, surveillance, and investigative capabilities of poison control centers to provide information to health care providers and the public in response to chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear events.
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$5.4 million for states bordering Mexico and Canada, including the Great Lakes States, for detection, investigation, and reporting of urgent infectious disease cases in the shared border regions.
Today’s announcement is in addition to the $430 million made available late last month to strengthen the ability of hospitals and other health care facilities to respond to bioterror attacks, infectious diseases, and natural disasters that may cause mass casualties.
Since 2002, HHS made more than $7 billion for preparedness-related programs. The CDC Fiscal Year 2007 funding distribution table is available at
http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2007pres/07/pr20070717c.html
.