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Pentagon refines bird-flu pandemic plans
02/06/07 - By Kelly Kennedy, Navy Times
As England battled its first bout of bird flu last week, the U.S. Defense Department continued preparations in case of a mass human outbreak of the disease.
So far, 271 people have been infected with bird flu in 10 countries ? including Iraq ? and 165 people have died since 2003, according to the World Health Organization.
At the annual Military Health System conference recently held in Washington, Army Lt. Col. Wayne Hachey, director of preventative medicine and surveillance for the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, gave an update about progress.
?If we don?t do anything, it?s going to slap us, and slap us hard,? Hachey said. ?Blunt the pandemic: That?s the strategy.?
Hachey couched his warning with the acceptance that a bird-flu pandemic may never hit, but he said the Defense Department learned a hard lesson in 1918 when more men died from flu during World War I than from bullets. Within a month, the flu had infected 25 percent of the Army and had hit all 11 major camps. As soldiers shipped from barracks to boat to front lines, they took the disease with them.
?DoD did not start the outbreak,? he said, ?but DoD did ignore it.?
This time, he said, there?s a plan.
?If [the bird flu] hits the DoD, they?re expecting a 35 percent attack rate with 40 percent of the force out sick,? Hachey said. ?But the force still has to provide defense, as well as health care.?
The Defense Department completed a plan to deal with a bird-flu pandemic in August, and a plan for combatants hit with bird flu in December. Because there is not enough vaccine to go around, and because it?s nearly impossible to create a vaccine specific to a flu until the flu has mutated to a form that will infect large numbers of humans, Hachey said they?ve come up with other ways to handle a potential problem.
First, they?re using the Global Emerging Infection Systems Air Force Lab in San Antonio to detect large numbers of flu infections. The database is updated every eight hours with information from military facilities around the world, he said.
Second, they hope to control the infection if and when it hits. Part of that includes teaching people to cover their mouths when they cough and sneeze, as well as turn away from other people when they do. It also means washing hands, picking a designated caretaker in each household so the whole family doesn?t get sick, and voluntary quarantine.
Third, they plan to use ?social distancing.? That means not going to the movie theater, not standing in formation with a mass of other sick people, and keeping children home from school ? as they tend to act as walking Petri dishes.
?The biggest bang for our buck for kids is closing schools,? Hachey said. ?Especially with kids being willing to share their secretions so ubiquitously.?
And finally, Hachey said they plan to use their 1.7 million doses of vaccine for health care workers, and 3.4 million courses of Tamiflu as a treatment for those infected with bird flu.
?That appears to be effective in people and ferrets,? Hachey said. ?But that 1.7 million [vaccine doses] is not going to go very far.?
They?re also researching how the disease spreads. So far, there doesn?t appear to be any human-to-human contact of bird flu.
?Most of the cases involve people doing things with chickens they shouldn?t be doing with chickens,? Hachey said.
By that, he means treating birds as pets ? or even as part of the family. At some small poultry farms in undeveloped areas, chickens run in and out of the house, and sometimes even sleep with family members. And, because those families also tend to be poor, farmers don?t destroy chickens infected by disease.
?If they?re newly deceased or dying, it still represents supper,? Hachey said.
The Defense Department is operating on the assumption that bird flu is spread by droplets, such as from sneezes, and is stockpiling surgical masks for health-care workers, as well as gowns and gloves. Those supplies, as well as the Tamiflu and vaccine, have been distributed to depots around the world for easy access in case of a pandemic.
But Hachey said the bug often works so quickly ? seven days from onset of symptoms to death ? that it doesn?t get a chance to leave its host. Or, as Hachey put it, ?Elvis can?t leave the building.?
http://www.nmrc.navy.mil/pdf/SG_Media_Update_7Feb07.pdf
02/06/07 - By Kelly Kennedy, Navy Times
As England battled its first bout of bird flu last week, the U.S. Defense Department continued preparations in case of a mass human outbreak of the disease.
So far, 271 people have been infected with bird flu in 10 countries ? including Iraq ? and 165 people have died since 2003, according to the World Health Organization.
At the annual Military Health System conference recently held in Washington, Army Lt. Col. Wayne Hachey, director of preventative medicine and surveillance for the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, gave an update about progress.
?If we don?t do anything, it?s going to slap us, and slap us hard,? Hachey said. ?Blunt the pandemic: That?s the strategy.?
Hachey couched his warning with the acceptance that a bird-flu pandemic may never hit, but he said the Defense Department learned a hard lesson in 1918 when more men died from flu during World War I than from bullets. Within a month, the flu had infected 25 percent of the Army and had hit all 11 major camps. As soldiers shipped from barracks to boat to front lines, they took the disease with them.
?DoD did not start the outbreak,? he said, ?but DoD did ignore it.?
This time, he said, there?s a plan.
?If [the bird flu] hits the DoD, they?re expecting a 35 percent attack rate with 40 percent of the force out sick,? Hachey said. ?But the force still has to provide defense, as well as health care.?
The Defense Department completed a plan to deal with a bird-flu pandemic in August, and a plan for combatants hit with bird flu in December. Because there is not enough vaccine to go around, and because it?s nearly impossible to create a vaccine specific to a flu until the flu has mutated to a form that will infect large numbers of humans, Hachey said they?ve come up with other ways to handle a potential problem.
First, they?re using the Global Emerging Infection Systems Air Force Lab in San Antonio to detect large numbers of flu infections. The database is updated every eight hours with information from military facilities around the world, he said.
Second, they hope to control the infection if and when it hits. Part of that includes teaching people to cover their mouths when they cough and sneeze, as well as turn away from other people when they do. It also means washing hands, picking a designated caretaker in each household so the whole family doesn?t get sick, and voluntary quarantine.
Third, they plan to use ?social distancing.? That means not going to the movie theater, not standing in formation with a mass of other sick people, and keeping children home from school ? as they tend to act as walking Petri dishes.
?The biggest bang for our buck for kids is closing schools,? Hachey said. ?Especially with kids being willing to share their secretions so ubiquitously.?
And finally, Hachey said they plan to use their 1.7 million doses of vaccine for health care workers, and 3.4 million courses of Tamiflu as a treatment for those infected with bird flu.
?That appears to be effective in people and ferrets,? Hachey said. ?But that 1.7 million [vaccine doses] is not going to go very far.?
They?re also researching how the disease spreads. So far, there doesn?t appear to be any human-to-human contact of bird flu.
?Most of the cases involve people doing things with chickens they shouldn?t be doing with chickens,? Hachey said.
By that, he means treating birds as pets ? or even as part of the family. At some small poultry farms in undeveloped areas, chickens run in and out of the house, and sometimes even sleep with family members. And, because those families also tend to be poor, farmers don?t destroy chickens infected by disease.
?If they?re newly deceased or dying, it still represents supper,? Hachey said.
The Defense Department is operating on the assumption that bird flu is spread by droplets, such as from sneezes, and is stockpiling surgical masks for health-care workers, as well as gowns and gloves. Those supplies, as well as the Tamiflu and vaccine, have been distributed to depots around the world for easy access in case of a pandemic.
But Hachey said the bug often works so quickly ? seven days from onset of symptoms to death ? that it doesn?t get a chance to leave its host. Or, as Hachey put it, ?Elvis can?t leave the building.?
http://www.nmrc.navy.mil/pdf/SG_Media_Update_7Feb07.pdf
