Imagine that you are representing the staff in the health care agency where you
ID: 262661 • Letter: I
Question
Imagine that you are representing the staff in the health care agency where you work. In anticipation of a possible outbreak of a deadly new strain of flu, the administration has decreed that all staff must present documentation of adequate immunity against this new flu before gaining access to any patient care settings. The required flu vaccine and immunity test have only been developed and marketed in the past year. In your initial post answer the following questions: As the staff representative concerned for the rights and safety of your constituents, what questions would you raise about the accuracy of the immunity screening test? Based on your general understanding of disease processes, what concerns would you have about this new flu strain in terms of its impact on staff, clients, and the agency’s readiness to handle an outbreak?
Explanation / Answer
As a staff representative the first question should be raised about the accuracy and validity of the immunity test, which will become the basis for all the future decisions and strategies. Another important question which requires immediate attention is validity of the immunity test. How does one can know that the test conducted captures good measure of person’s immunity status?
Another aspect of inquiry would include about quality control, reliability and scientific basis of the test conducted for the immunity. This will also include the techniques used by staff in sample collection and quality control.
Third level of inquiry shall include the demographics of the sample used for vaccination, any specific group of population which had been tested for vaccination and results have been shared. What were the pre-check done before implementing vaccine to the population, does the population tested for the vaccine had some other diseases or were on some other medication which have affected the results of vaccine.
Another aspect of inquiry could be asking question about how one will predict which set of population will suffer from flu and which will remain immune. Answering this question one can decide whether vaccination needs to be done to everyone or for a selected population.
What is mode of infection for the flu strain? What are its affect on body. Is there any symptoms which can help one to distinguish it from existing flu strains.
What are the short term and long term health risks associated with flu as compared with health risk associated with vaccine?