A new report gives Iowa good marks for preparing for a potential outbreak of infectious disease. Rich Hamburg, is deputy director of the Trust for America’s Health. He says it’s an annual report on outbreaks and emergency preparedness for everything from Ebola, the flu to antibiotics resistance. He says Iowa had a pretty good showing.Hamburg says Iowa met six of its ten indicators, which puts it in the upper half of the states.

“One that is critically important for any kind of all hazard preparedness effort is funding. This was two years running that Iowa did increase the amount of state-level funding for public health,” Hamburg explains. Hamburg says Iowa only had 48-point-six percent of residents who got a flu shot. The highest state was 57 percent, and he says to pass the indicator the state needed to have 50 percent immunized.

You can see the full report at:www.healthyamericans.org.

(Radio Iowa)