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<table width="376"><tbody><tr><td class="headline">Area health officials staging week-long mock invasion of pandemic bird flu </td></tr> <tr><td class="date">2007-01-04</td></tr> <tr><td class="author">By Jim Phillips</td></tr> <tr><td class="position">Athens NEWS Senior Writer</td></tr> <tr><td>
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The ominous Asian bird flu arrives in southeastern Ohio today -- though only in theory.
From Jan. 4-12, public health officials in 10 counties including Athens will conduct a dry run of how they'll respond when the disease invades the region for real -- as it's considered nearly certain to do at some point in the future.
Put together by the area's Regional Medical Response System (RMRS), the eight-day Pandemic Flu Exercise will involve multiple agencies and hospitals, according to Jeremy Phillips, emergency response coordinator for the Athens City-County Health Department.
"It's a functional exercise, which means we won't actually be committing any resources," Phillips explained. "It'll all be simulated."
Taking part will be county health departments and emergency management agencies from Athens, Hocking, Gallia, Jackson, Lawrence, Meigs, Pike, Ross, Scioto and Vinton counties; city health departments from Ironton and Portsmouth; and seven area hospitals including O'Bleness in Athens. Other groups will be brought into the exercise as each county sees fit. In Athens County, for example, Phillips said, the local Red Cross chapter will be a player.
According to Dr. Doug Fisher of the RMRS, the exercise will present the "players" with an evolving situation, in which a new strain of avian flu is identified as spreading in Asia, then is found to have reached the United States, and finally to have hit southeast Ohio. "We tried to come up with a realistic scenario," Fisher said, featuring three stages of the flu's progress: "It's coming; it's here - meaning it's here in the United States; and it's here really bad."
As mentioned, this is a "tabletop" exercise, so mobs of actors aren't going to be physically flocking into local emergency rooms, pretending to be suffering from bird flu.
Instead, a "simulation cell" based in Washington County will generate "injects" - phone calls, radio messages or other communications - informing players of the latest developments.
Thus, an early "inject" might announce that a new strain of flu is spreading in a southeastern province of China. Later injects might share the news that a case of the new flu has been identified in America by the Centers for Disease Control, or that the ER in some regional hospital is overwhelmed with patients.
With every new piece of news, players must respond as they would during a real flu outbreak - networking, sharing resources, setting up command centers, and keeping the public informed.
"Depending on how (the players) respond, we can use the injects to drive the exercise different ways," Fisher said.
One challenge the players will face is that, in their hypothetical flu outbreak, there won't be any effective vaccine available. "We've been instructed that we need to assume that it would be a minimum of six to eight months, maybe up to a year, for a vaccine," Phillips said. "Initially, there will not be a vaccine."
Fisher noted that this is just what care providers could expect in a real outbreak. "That is realistic," he said, pointing out that influenza is constantly evolving, and requires researchers to constantly come up with new vaccines for new strains.
Even if and when some vaccine arrives in the game world, Phillips added, supplies will almost certainly be limited and have to be rationed, creating another challenge for the players. "How are we going to explain to the public that we only have so many (doses), and they're going to go to hospital workers, or ambulance workers, or whatever?" he asked.
Another condition of the exercise, also realistic, is that care providers in the region won't be able to reach out for help to other agencies across the state, who in a real pandemic flu would have their hands full. "We aren't counting on outside help," Phillips confirmed. "We have to plan to function independently."
Registered Nurse Kathy Jacobson, formerly of the Athens City-County Health Department, has taken part in a past regional mock epidemic exercise, focused on smallpox. She works these days to try to spread the gospel of preparedness among the public and local businesses, a task in which she thinks the Red Cross has an important role to play. "It's very clear, the role of the Red Cross is to provide pre-pandemic education," Jacobson suggested.
However, she added, when the flu or some other disease breaks out in the region, it may raise questions that haven't been much thought about up till now. For example, one traditional role of the Red Cross is delivering food to disaster victims. In the case of an infectious disease epidemic, however, bringing food to the infected may be a risky business, and "you can't put Red Cross volunteers into harm's way."
This, said Jacobson, is just one of many issues that needs to be thought through ahead of time - something she hopes the current exercise will promote.
Another issue is how to bring local businesses into the process more, so they can make their own plans for dealing with an epidemic - arranging for employees to work from home, for example - and also be prepared to lend a hand with the larger regional effort.
Dealing with an epidemic "really does require a tremendous amount of collaboration," she warned. "Businesses should really be developing their pandemic plans."
After the exercise is concluded, monitors of the process will prepare a report on how the region fared on the test. The participants will review the experience immediately afterward in a conference call, Phillips said, with a written report to follow within a month.
</td></tr></tbody></table>
http://www.athensnews.com/issue/article.php3?story_id=26969
The ominous Asian bird flu arrives in southeastern Ohio today -- though only in theory.
From Jan. 4-12, public health officials in 10 counties including Athens will conduct a dry run of how they'll respond when the disease invades the region for real -- as it's considered nearly certain to do at some point in the future.
Put together by the area's Regional Medical Response System (RMRS), the eight-day Pandemic Flu Exercise will involve multiple agencies and hospitals, according to Jeremy Phillips, emergency response coordinator for the Athens City-County Health Department.
"It's a functional exercise, which means we won't actually be committing any resources," Phillips explained. "It'll all be simulated."
Taking part will be county health departments and emergency management agencies from Athens, Hocking, Gallia, Jackson, Lawrence, Meigs, Pike, Ross, Scioto and Vinton counties; city health departments from Ironton and Portsmouth; and seven area hospitals including O'Bleness in Athens. Other groups will be brought into the exercise as each county sees fit. In Athens County, for example, Phillips said, the local Red Cross chapter will be a player.
According to Dr. Doug Fisher of the RMRS, the exercise will present the "players" with an evolving situation, in which a new strain of avian flu is identified as spreading in Asia, then is found to have reached the United States, and finally to have hit southeast Ohio. "We tried to come up with a realistic scenario," Fisher said, featuring three stages of the flu's progress: "It's coming; it's here - meaning it's here in the United States; and it's here really bad."
As mentioned, this is a "tabletop" exercise, so mobs of actors aren't going to be physically flocking into local emergency rooms, pretending to be suffering from bird flu.
Instead, a "simulation cell" based in Washington County will generate "injects" - phone calls, radio messages or other communications - informing players of the latest developments.
Thus, an early "inject" might announce that a new strain of flu is spreading in a southeastern province of China. Later injects might share the news that a case of the new flu has been identified in America by the Centers for Disease Control, or that the ER in some regional hospital is overwhelmed with patients.
With every new piece of news, players must respond as they would during a real flu outbreak - networking, sharing resources, setting up command centers, and keeping the public informed.
"Depending on how (the players) respond, we can use the injects to drive the exercise different ways," Fisher said.
One challenge the players will face is that, in their hypothetical flu outbreak, there won't be any effective vaccine available. "We've been instructed that we need to assume that it would be a minimum of six to eight months, maybe up to a year, for a vaccine," Phillips said. "Initially, there will not be a vaccine."
Fisher noted that this is just what care providers could expect in a real outbreak. "That is realistic," he said, pointing out that influenza is constantly evolving, and requires researchers to constantly come up with new vaccines for new strains.
Even if and when some vaccine arrives in the game world, Phillips added, supplies will almost certainly be limited and have to be rationed, creating another challenge for the players. "How are we going to explain to the public that we only have so many (doses), and they're going to go to hospital workers, or ambulance workers, or whatever?" he asked.
Another condition of the exercise, also realistic, is that care providers in the region won't be able to reach out for help to other agencies across the state, who in a real pandemic flu would have their hands full. "We aren't counting on outside help," Phillips confirmed. "We have to plan to function independently."
Registered Nurse Kathy Jacobson, formerly of the Athens City-County Health Department, has taken part in a past regional mock epidemic exercise, focused on smallpox. She works these days to try to spread the gospel of preparedness among the public and local businesses, a task in which she thinks the Red Cross has an important role to play. "It's very clear, the role of the Red Cross is to provide pre-pandemic education," Jacobson suggested.
However, she added, when the flu or some other disease breaks out in the region, it may raise questions that haven't been much thought about up till now. For example, one traditional role of the Red Cross is delivering food to disaster victims. In the case of an infectious disease epidemic, however, bringing food to the infected may be a risky business, and "you can't put Red Cross volunteers into harm's way."
This, said Jacobson, is just one of many issues that needs to be thought through ahead of time - something she hopes the current exercise will promote.
Another issue is how to bring local businesses into the process more, so they can make their own plans for dealing with an epidemic - arranging for employees to work from home, for example - and also be prepared to lend a hand with the larger regional effort.
Dealing with an epidemic "really does require a tremendous amount of collaboration," she warned. "Businesses should really be developing their pandemic plans."
After the exercise is concluded, monitors of the process will prepare a report on how the region fared on the test. The participants will review the experience immediately afterward in a conference call, Phillips said, with a written report to follow within a month.
</td></tr></tbody></table>
http://www.athensnews.com/issue/article.php3?story_id=26969