Press Release

September 26, 2006
Contact: Jerry Carey
Phone: (856) 566-6171
careyge@umdnj.edu

Pandemic Preparedness Program Scheduled for Sept. 27 at UMDNJ-Stratford

STRATFORD — Nearly 200 area residents are expected to attend “Avian Flu - Pandemic Preparedness” at the UMDNJ-School of Osteopathic Medicine on Wednesday, Sept. 27, from 8:30 a.m. to noon, in the medical school’s Academic Center, on Laurel Road, in Stratford.

During this public health forum, experts from UMDNJ and Kennedy Memorial Hospitals will discuss the many facets of pandemic preparedness, including the latest known information about the avian flu virus, the current status of public health and hospital preparedness, and the medical and mental health impact of both the threat and reality of a flu pandemic.

Among the featured speakers at this event are Dr. David Condoluci, an infectious disease specialist and chief of staff at Kennedy Health System, and Dr. George DiFerdinando, former New Jersey Commissioner of Health and Senior Services and current adjunct professor of epidemiology at the New Jersey Center for Public Health Preparedness. The forum will also include a discussion on the impact of a flu pandemic by a panel of department chairs, faculty and senior administrators from the medical school and from Kennedy Health System

UMDNJ is the nation's largest free-standing public health sciences university with more than 5,500 students attending the state's three medical schools, its only dental school, a graduate school of biomedical sciences, a school of health related professions, a school of nursing and its only school of public health, on five campuses. Last year, there were more than two million patient visits to UMDNJ facilities and faculty at campuses in Newark, New Brunswick/Piscataway, Scotch Plains, Camden and Stratford. UMDNJ operates University Hospital, a Level I Trauma Center in Newark, and University Behavioral HealthCare, a mental health and addiction services network.