Flu Pandemic: Impact, Challenges, and Role of Nurses

Running head: FLU PANDEMIC
FLU PANDEMIC
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Epidemiology...................................................................................................................................2
Impact of issue.................................................................................................................................4
Role of nurse in pandemic emergency.............................................................................................5
Issue and challenges faced by the nurse..........................................................................................6
Future direction and recommendation.............................................................................................7
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
Reference.........................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
An influenza pandemic can be deemed as an epidemic of influenza virus that spreads on a
global scale. The spread of influenza creates a wider range of tension as it is capable of infecting
a large number of populations. In the last three years there has been 3 serious case of influenza
pandemic. However, for human flu pandemic to occur, the virus needs to do three things
effectively. The first thing is that, the virus needs to infect the human efficiently. The second
intervention is to replicate successfully, followed by easy spread among human. While these
prospects are threatening enough, the major cause of worry remains within the fact that, there
remains no good way to effectively predict the exact instance when a FLU PANDEMIC may
occur. This continuous uncertainty makes it even difficult to understand the fact that exposure of
an individual to flu pandemic may create sudden health problems (Uyeki, Katz & Jernigan,
2017).
Epidemiology
The pandemic influenza has been known to cause considerable mortality and morbidity
world-wide. In Malaysia, every year people falls in the trap of infections cause by influenza. It
has led to the 250,000-500,000 death of the people in Malaysia (WHO.int, 2019).The burden of
the disease is not extensively studied in the Malaysia. Approximately there has been report of
11000 death of children below 5 years old due to influenza in 2009 (WHO.int, 2019). The major
reason for such issue is that influenza is highly communicable disease which can be spread by
physical contact, sneezing, using infected utensil or staying around the infected person. Influenza
flu is caused by many viruses like influenza B virus, influenza A virus and H1N1 virus. In
Malaysia, new influenza A virus H1N1 subtype has been involved in the spread of the flu

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making it pandemic. It has happened in the year 2009 that more than 2253 cases of the flu
outbreak have been reported (WHO.int, 2019). The outbreak was also reported in the same year
in United States and Australia which spread due to local transmission. In Malaysia, 78 death has
been confirmed due to pandemic influenza (Demicheli et al., 2018). The emergence of new virus
become the mean of rapidly spreading of the infection, and left the country in fear of arise of
new infectious virus. The virus is extremely infectious and can occur in all age group of people
especially individual with low immunity. The infections can get easily spread within household,
school and in hospitals. The symptom showed due to H1N1 infection is diarrhea and vomiting,
however, in Malaysia, less than 4-7% of people infected with the virus has shown such sign
(Sam et al. 2015). 82% of people had fever, 76% cough, 56%-65% headache and 65-75% sore
throat are the common sign noted in influenza infected person (WHO.int, 2019)
The mode of transmission of influenza virus occur mainly due to dissemination of the
water droplet from the cough of infected person (Otter et al., 2016). The infection can be spread
easily when individual comes in contact with the fomites infected with the gastro-intestinal
material. The infection is also potent to fecal-oral transmission. It is evident from the study that
sudden outbreak of influenza H1N1 in Malaysia happened as the infection came from other
country and was followed by local transmission, in 2009, ministry of health of Malaysia has
stated confirmed 900 cases with 500 imported cases and 408 local cases (Sam et al. 2015) The
increasing case of flu issue within the country can be termed as a major cause of concern leading
to problems within the health infrastructure.
Impact of issue
From the above discussion it can be said that, the issue of pandemic flu is related with
easily spreads and transfer which is affecting the life of both patient and health care