Hospitals "Full-Up": The 1918 Influenza Pandemic
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An influenza virus . . . was responsible for one of the greatest public health emergencies in the United States in the twentieth century. "Spanish Flu" affords a sobering glimpse of the health care burdens associated with a large-scale, lethal outbreak of infectious disease. In the event of a catastrophic epidemic initiated by bioterrorism today, would we be able to care for the sick and dying?

Hospitals ‘Full-Up’: The 1918 Influenza Pandemic is a short documentary that the Biosecurity Center originally produced for presentation at the 2nd National Symposium on Medical and Public Health Response to Bioterrorism, held in Washington, DC, on November 28-29, 2000.

Dr. Monica Schoch-Spana directed the video production based upon her paper, "Implications of Pandemic Influenza for Bioterrorism Response" (Clinical Infectious Diseases 2000; 31:1409-1413).

Following the symposium, the Office of Emergency Preparedness with the U.S. Public Health Service and the Department of Health and Human Services provided a grant to support mass production and distribution of the educational videotape. 3,000 videotapes of the documentary are presently in distribution. In collaboration with the California Distance Learning Health Network of San Diego State University, the Center for Biosecurity of UPMC is pleased to make this documentary available on-line as communities begin preparations for a possible pandemic influenza.

For those seeking permission to use or reproduce this video, CDLHN now holds copyright, with all rights reserved. Requests to reproduce, distribute, or use the video in any other way should be directed to Dr. Violet Macias-Reynolds, Executive Director of the California Distance Learning Health Network (vmacias@projects.sdsu.edu).

Key messages of the documentary are:

1. A catastrophic epidemic resulting from bioterrorism could severely tax society’s ability to care for the sick and dying.

2. A large-scale, lethal epidemic could place severe burdens upon the health care system, as suggested by the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic in which acute shortages of health personnel, supplies, equipment and hospital beds occurred.

3. Today’s hospitals are ill-equipped to respond to the mass casualties possible during an infectious disease emergency whether naturally occurring, as in the case of pandemic flu, or maliciously initiated, as in an act of biological terrorism.