Preparing for a pandemic
By Tanya Brown
tbrown@journalandcourier.com
http://www.jconline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060309/NEWS0501/603090313/1152
March 9, 2006
As bird flu continues its march across the globe and talk of a pandemic becomes more common, Purdue University is taking steps to raise awareness and squelch panic before it can take root.
Officials are launching a universitywide avian flu preparedness plan that will include best practices for traveling students and details about how the campus will operate if a pandemic breaks out.
"There will be a letter coming out from the president to parents and probably other constituencies," said Jeanne Norberg, director of University News Service and head of Purdue's communication and education subcommittee on bird flu.
"We'll follow that with forums where not only can we give information to people, we can also answer questions so that people feel empowered to take action themselves."
The World Health Organization has reported 175 human cases of avian flu in seven countries with 96 deaths as of Wednesday.
Midhun Charoth, 19, says that despite national concerns, he still does not know what to think about avian flu. Charoth, a Purdue University management student from southern India, says he does not intend to change his plans to travel home this summer.
His family has yet to mention the flu to him, despite reports Wednesday that India has culled about 500,000 birds and launched a mass cleanup around the town of Navapur, where cases of H5N1 were confirmed in chickens last month.
"All my family members are very healthy," Charoth said. "We try to be as vegetarian as we can be."
Purdue has set up a Web site devoted to the topic and can send automatic e-mail updates to those who sign up when new information is posted.
Planning for pandemic
Jim Westman, director of Purdue's Student Health Center and co-chair of the university's pandemic influenza response planning committee, said Purdue is taking a six-pronged approach to the flu, examining safety and security; academic and research continuity; students and residence halls; health; business continuation; and communication and education.
While no travel health warnings -- the most severe warnings issued by the Centers for Disease Control -- have been issued, Westman said it is important for everyone to keep abreast of the situation.
"I think any time we have international travel to areas affected by the current H5N1 variety, we want those travelers informed," he said.
The university does not have a tracking mechanism to determine how many students may be traveling abroad in infected countries, but Westman worries less about spring break trips next week than the approaching summer break.
"We don't know of any reported outbreaks in this country or Mexico," he said.
Quarantine possible
No one is really certain how an outbreak in the United States might affect Purdue, since emergency response for the 38,000 students on campus could vary depending upon severity.
Depending on the virility of a human strand, the CDC estimates that between 1.4 million and 7 million people could die from bird flu worldwide.
An extremely contagious outbreak could force Purdue to quarantine students, said Carol Shelby, senior director of environmental health and public safety and co-chair of Purdue's bird flu committee.
"At this point, we don't know if we'll be sending the students home or keeping them here," she said. "It's likely that that decision would have to come from the governor's office.
"The residence halls have capacity for 12,000 students, but we think more than 2,000 students could go home," she said.
The remainder, depending on the severity of government recommendations, could find themselves playing X-Box all day and having meals delivered to their doors, since group meetings would be taboo.
"We have sufficient coal and water and those kinds of utilities" to support a quarantine, she said, adding that Purdue also has stockpiles of food in its warehouses.
"If the governor says we have to quarantine, we are preparing to put barriers across specific roads so we can control the access on and off campus."
In addition, the university is looking at how the school would operate on a skeleton crew and how to continue critical research under such conditions.
Other issues include whether or not existing leave policies are thorough enough to cover a campuswide closing and how checks and benefit payments would be processed under such circumstances.
Travelers a concern
Mike Brzezinski, director of International Students and Scholars at Purdue, said it is important to remember that the virus has yet to mutate and that Purdue's international student population is essential to campus.
"Only 2 percent of the foreign nationals that come to this country are students," he said. "We have plenty of other people who have a far greater capability of bringing it to this country."
Caterpillar, Inc., which regularly sends businesspeople to countries where H5N1 has been reported, declined to comment on whether or not they are recommending best practices for their employees.
Subaru of Indiana, whose employees primarily visit Japan -- a country not yet affected -- said while it does encourage employees to get yearly flu shots, it has not discussed avian flu in detail.
"If Purdue is looking at this and taking a leadership position, we should at least be looking into it," said Ann McConnell, an SIA representative.
By Tanya Brown
tbrown@journalandcourier.com
http://www.jconline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060309/NEWS0501/603090313/1152
March 9, 2006
As bird flu continues its march across the globe and talk of a pandemic becomes more common, Purdue University is taking steps to raise awareness and squelch panic before it can take root.
Officials are launching a universitywide avian flu preparedness plan that will include best practices for traveling students and details about how the campus will operate if a pandemic breaks out.
"There will be a letter coming out from the president to parents and probably other constituencies," said Jeanne Norberg, director of University News Service and head of Purdue's communication and education subcommittee on bird flu.
"We'll follow that with forums where not only can we give information to people, we can also answer questions so that people feel empowered to take action themselves."
The World Health Organization has reported 175 human cases of avian flu in seven countries with 96 deaths as of Wednesday.
Midhun Charoth, 19, says that despite national concerns, he still does not know what to think about avian flu. Charoth, a Purdue University management student from southern India, says he does not intend to change his plans to travel home this summer.
His family has yet to mention the flu to him, despite reports Wednesday that India has culled about 500,000 birds and launched a mass cleanup around the town of Navapur, where cases of H5N1 were confirmed in chickens last month.
"All my family members are very healthy," Charoth said. "We try to be as vegetarian as we can be."
Purdue has set up a Web site devoted to the topic and can send automatic e-mail updates to those who sign up when new information is posted.
Planning for pandemic
Jim Westman, director of Purdue's Student Health Center and co-chair of the university's pandemic influenza response planning committee, said Purdue is taking a six-pronged approach to the flu, examining safety and security; academic and research continuity; students and residence halls; health; business continuation; and communication and education.
While no travel health warnings -- the most severe warnings issued by the Centers for Disease Control -- have been issued, Westman said it is important for everyone to keep abreast of the situation.
"I think any time we have international travel to areas affected by the current H5N1 variety, we want those travelers informed," he said.
The university does not have a tracking mechanism to determine how many students may be traveling abroad in infected countries, but Westman worries less about spring break trips next week than the approaching summer break.
"We don't know of any reported outbreaks in this country or Mexico," he said.
Quarantine possible
No one is really certain how an outbreak in the United States might affect Purdue, since emergency response for the 38,000 students on campus could vary depending upon severity.
Depending on the virility of a human strand, the CDC estimates that between 1.4 million and 7 million people could die from bird flu worldwide.
An extremely contagious outbreak could force Purdue to quarantine students, said Carol Shelby, senior director of environmental health and public safety and co-chair of Purdue's bird flu committee.
"At this point, we don't know if we'll be sending the students home or keeping them here," she said. "It's likely that that decision would have to come from the governor's office.
"The residence halls have capacity for 12,000 students, but we think more than 2,000 students could go home," she said.
The remainder, depending on the severity of government recommendations, could find themselves playing X-Box all day and having meals delivered to their doors, since group meetings would be taboo.
"We have sufficient coal and water and those kinds of utilities" to support a quarantine, she said, adding that Purdue also has stockpiles of food in its warehouses.
"If the governor says we have to quarantine, we are preparing to put barriers across specific roads so we can control the access on and off campus."
In addition, the university is looking at how the school would operate on a skeleton crew and how to continue critical research under such conditions.
Other issues include whether or not existing leave policies are thorough enough to cover a campuswide closing and how checks and benefit payments would be processed under such circumstances.
Travelers a concern
Mike Brzezinski, director of International Students and Scholars at Purdue, said it is important to remember that the virus has yet to mutate and that Purdue's international student population is essential to campus.
"Only 2 percent of the foreign nationals that come to this country are students," he said. "We have plenty of other people who have a far greater capability of bringing it to this country."
Caterpillar, Inc., which regularly sends businesspeople to countries where H5N1 has been reported, declined to comment on whether or not they are recommending best practices for their employees.
Subaru of Indiana, whose employees primarily visit Japan -- a country not yet affected -- said while it does encourage employees to get yearly flu shots, it has not discussed avian flu in detail.
"If Purdue is looking at this and taking a leadership position, we should at least be looking into it," said Ann McConnell, an SIA representative.