The board of The Health Protection Agency has begun finalizing its Strategic Plan for 2010-15, making the draft plan available to the public for the first time.
The proposed draft plan highlights tuberculosis as a re-emerging threat and highlights activities by the Health Protection Agency to develop new vaccines as well as the agency’s role in vaccination policy decisions.
The agency’s draft plan also calls for completion of its designated pandemic flu activities under the government’s pandemic flu plan. This includes the preparation of flu strains for pandemic vaccines.
Hepatitis B is highlight by the draft plan as a "challenge to the whole health community," with the agency continuing its role in informing vaccination policy.
The draft plan makes no note of anthrax, though its emergency preparedness section makes brief mention of accidental or deliberate spread of infections. It calls for better risk assessment and prevention in terms of identifying and assessing health risks, noting that "incidents and emergencies involving the accidental or deliberate spread of infectious, chemical or radiological agents…pandemic influenza, measles or tuberculosis, can cause significant illness and death."
Under the plan’s section on biological medicines, including vaccines, the agency says that it hopes that new advances in medicines and vaccines will lead to an enhanced emergency preparedness.
"The HPA will conduct translational research to support the development and facilitate production of novel interventions, including biological medicines," the draft says. "This will lead to, reduced harm from infectious and other diseases, enhanced emergency preparedness and improved effectiveness of diagnosis, treatment, decontamination and preventative measures."
