HONOLULU - The Hawai'i State Department of Health's public health preparedness efforts are profiled in a national report released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A news release from the Department of Health aid that according to the report, Hawai'i has received over $43 million from the CDC's Public Health Emergency Preparedness cooperative agreement from FY 2002-2007. This federal funding has enabled the DOH to make great progress in the areas of disease detection and investigation, laboratory testing capabilities, and planning, training and exercising to build emergency response capabilities, the news release said.

Accomplishments highlighted in the report include DOH's ability to:

• Receive and investigate urgent disease reports 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year

• Conduct year-round surveillance for seasonal influenza

• Rapidly identify agents that could be a threat to health, and send urgent messages to frontline laboratories

• Conduct training and develop roles and responsibilities for a multi-jurisdictional response to emergencies

"The cooperative agreement provides funding and technical assistance that are indispensable to our public health emergency preparedness efforts," said Director of Health Chiyome Fukino, M.D. "Thanks to these vital resources, we've been able to get more people prepared and able to respond in an emergency, and continue planning for improvement."

DOH's participation in a United States Postal Service exercise of the Biohazard Detection System in June 2007 was featured in the report as an example of a full-scale exercise involving multiple agencies to ensure a coordinated response to public health incidents.

The "Public Health Preparedness: Mobilizing State by State," report is available at: http://emergency.cdc.gov/publications/feb08phprep/