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<!--PRINTER FRIENDLY ARTICLE--> Pandemic flu plans stalled, planners say
April 10, 2008
Joel Banner Baird
Free Press Staff Writer
SOUTH BURLINGTON -- Give it time, medical experts say: The H5N1 virus that causes avian flu will find an efficient way for humans to transmit the disease to other humans.
Wednesday morning, about 25 emergency planners gathered at the Best Western Windjammer Conference Center to accelerate strategies for coping with the outbreak of a global flu pandemic.
Not if it comes, but when.
Sponsored by the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission, the conference highlighted the need to coordinate personal, community and municipal preparedness. "Historically, the world has had three pandemics every century," said Al Turgeon, co-chairman of an emergency planning group at the University of Vermont. "We're about due for another one."
Turgeon's efforts at UVM assume a worst-case scenario, published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: At least two waves of contagion will infect up to 30 percent of any given population; hospitals will be overwhelmed; food and water will be in short supply.
The plan accounts for a full calendar year.
"You can't get comfortable with this," Turgeon said. "We live in a pretty skeptical community. But you have to convince them. You have to get the word out."
The university conducts open forums designed to unearth every conceivable shudder to its many systems.
Discussions and plans must continue to evolve, Turgeon urged -- because of the hundreds of ways a disease can course through a community.
"I don't know what the final plan will look like," he said.
Other planners take aim at similarly shifting targets.
Capt. Craig Rounds of the South Burlington Fire Department said manpower shortages would challenge emergency responders, already shorthanded.
What if the disease coincided with snowstorms? Or electric failures?
"Every community needs someone with authority to make this happen," he said. "We don't need more pamphlets. We need to make this a priority. If people aren't told that it's something they need to do today, they won't."
Public awareness presents the steepest challenge to planners, said Dr. Cort Lohff, Vermont's state epidemiologist: Quarantines, service cutbacks and rationing rarely make it to the top of municipal -- or personal -- agendas.
"We need to let people know in advance what we're doing and why we're doing it," he said. "At the very least, we can help people understand our rationale."
Lois Farnham, a parish nurse at Burlington's First Congregational Church, said potential volunteers needed to be kept in the planning loop, too.
Her church, she said, served as an infirmary during the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, which killed millions worldwide.
Farnham was the only member of one break-out group who maintained an emergency supply kit at home.
"Why wait for severe weather?" she asked. "Pick up some bottled water. A jar of peanut butter goes a long way."
Contact Joel Banner Baird at 660-1843 or joelbaird@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com
<!--PRINTER FRIENDLY ARTICLE--> Pandemic flu plans stalled, planners say
April 10, 2008
Joel Banner Baird
Free Press Staff Writer
SOUTH BURLINGTON -- Give it time, medical experts say: The H5N1 virus that causes avian flu will find an efficient way for humans to transmit the disease to other humans.
Wednesday morning, about 25 emergency planners gathered at the Best Western Windjammer Conference Center to accelerate strategies for coping with the outbreak of a global flu pandemic.
Not if it comes, but when.
Sponsored by the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission, the conference highlighted the need to coordinate personal, community and municipal preparedness. "Historically, the world has had three pandemics every century," said Al Turgeon, co-chairman of an emergency planning group at the University of Vermont. "We're about due for another one."
Turgeon's efforts at UVM assume a worst-case scenario, published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: At least two waves of contagion will infect up to 30 percent of any given population; hospitals will be overwhelmed; food and water will be in short supply.
The plan accounts for a full calendar year.
"You can't get comfortable with this," Turgeon said. "We live in a pretty skeptical community. But you have to convince them. You have to get the word out."
The university conducts open forums designed to unearth every conceivable shudder to its many systems.
Discussions and plans must continue to evolve, Turgeon urged -- because of the hundreds of ways a disease can course through a community.
"I don't know what the final plan will look like," he said.
Other planners take aim at similarly shifting targets.
Capt. Craig Rounds of the South Burlington Fire Department said manpower shortages would challenge emergency responders, already shorthanded.
What if the disease coincided with snowstorms? Or electric failures?
"Every community needs someone with authority to make this happen," he said. "We don't need more pamphlets. We need to make this a priority. If people aren't told that it's something they need to do today, they won't."
Public awareness presents the steepest challenge to planners, said Dr. Cort Lohff, Vermont's state epidemiologist: Quarantines, service cutbacks and rationing rarely make it to the top of municipal -- or personal -- agendas.
"We need to let people know in advance what we're doing and why we're doing it," he said. "At the very least, we can help people understand our rationale."
Lois Farnham, a parish nurse at Burlington's First Congregational Church, said potential volunteers needed to be kept in the planning loop, too.
Her church, she said, served as an infirmary during the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, which killed millions worldwide.
Farnham was the only member of one break-out group who maintained an emergency supply kit at home.
"Why wait for severe weather?" she asked. "Pick up some bottled water. A jar of peanut butter goes a long way."
Contact Joel Banner Baird at 660-1843 or joelbaird@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com