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Second flu pandemic meeting set for today
By Sarah Zopfi
The Herald-Dispatch
HUNTINGTON -- Round two in a series of pandemic preparation meetings will be today at the Cabell-Huntington Health Department.
Department Director Dr. Harry Tweel said this meeting, which begins at 4 p.m., will focus on how the community will come together to provide vital services and share information should a pandemic flu strike.
"This meeting is to equate the committee with the charge we have been given," Tweel said. "We want to outline specific areas of planning."
During the first meeting last week, which was attended by about 100 Wayne and Cabell County officials, medical representatives and religious leaders, Tweel outlined some steps the counties need to take to prepare for an outbreak.
First, he said the community needs to assess what needs to be put in place. For instance, what will be done if schools were closed for an extended period of time? How would people communicate to their work place if person-to-person contact was not possible?
Secondly, a team of volunteers needs to be formed to help create the first draft of an emergency plan. Eventually, the entire two counties will have a practice drill to follow.
It is Tweel's hope that these questions will be answered today.
"If drugs were distributed to us to distribute, the problem won't be getting them to our area," Tweel said. "In the event of a pandemic, we would need people to let us know where those people who need help are, like the homebound."
But for humanity, the news is fairly good. The World Health Organization, which has been monitoring infections with H5N1 flu, says that although there have been cases of human-to-human transmission, the virus has not evolved into a form that easily can pass from person to person, a necessary step for a pandemic.
The most recent victim was a 15-year-old boy who died in Indonesia on May 30. The World Health Organization says he had direct contact with infected chickens in his household. None of his family or friends became ill.
There have been 225 human cases of H5N1 flu, including the 128 deaths. Human cases have occurred in 10 countries -- Azerbaijan, Cambodia, China, Djibouti, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Thailand, Turkey and Vietnam -- and include several clusters in which the virus passed from one family member to another but did not spread into the community.
By Sarah Zopfi
The Herald-Dispatch
HUNTINGTON -- Round two in a series of pandemic preparation meetings will be today at the Cabell-Huntington Health Department.
Department Director Dr. Harry Tweel said this meeting, which begins at 4 p.m., will focus on how the community will come together to provide vital services and share information should a pandemic flu strike.
"This meeting is to equate the committee with the charge we have been given," Tweel said. "We want to outline specific areas of planning."
During the first meeting last week, which was attended by about 100 Wayne and Cabell County officials, medical representatives and religious leaders, Tweel outlined some steps the counties need to take to prepare for an outbreak.
First, he said the community needs to assess what needs to be put in place. For instance, what will be done if schools were closed for an extended period of time? How would people communicate to their work place if person-to-person contact was not possible?
Secondly, a team of volunteers needs to be formed to help create the first draft of an emergency plan. Eventually, the entire two counties will have a practice drill to follow.
It is Tweel's hope that these questions will be answered today.
"If drugs were distributed to us to distribute, the problem won't be getting them to our area," Tweel said. "In the event of a pandemic, we would need people to let us know where those people who need help are, like the homebound."
But for humanity, the news is fairly good. The World Health Organization, which has been monitoring infections with H5N1 flu, says that although there have been cases of human-to-human transmission, the virus has not evolved into a form that easily can pass from person to person, a necessary step for a pandemic.
The most recent victim was a 15-year-old boy who died in Indonesia on May 30. The World Health Organization says he had direct contact with infected chickens in his household. None of his family or friends became ill.
There have been 225 human cases of H5N1 flu, including the 128 deaths. Human cases have occurred in 10 countries -- Azerbaijan, Cambodia, China, Djibouti, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Thailand, Turkey and Vietnam -- and include several clusters in which the virus passed from one family member to another but did not spread into the community.
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