#940
Like many localities, Palm Beach County is taking steps towards preparing for a major disaster, and an outbreak of infectious disease such as bird flu is high on their list.
A year after being designated a Cities Readiness Initiative agency, they held a drill recently where they needed 5,500 to 6,000 volunteers to show up for training to dispense a `vaccine' in the event of an outbreak. Their goal? To be able to treat and assist with the needs of 1.3 million residents in 48 hours.
A laudable goal. And a monumental undertaking. But there are at least 2 problems with this plan.
1. Only 55 people showed up for training (short by only 5545 people)
2. THERE'S NO VACCINE
First the article, then some discussion.
Volunteers trained for mass crisis
By Susan R. Miller
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
It's been six years since the anthrax scare at the AMI building put Boca Raton in the national spotlight.
Is Palm Beach County ready if something like that happens again, but on a massive scale? Based on the response so far from volunteers needed to assist if the area becomes the target of biological warfare or a flu pandemic, it's somewhat doubtful.
Just 55 of the 5,500 to 6,000 trained volunteers needed to handle a countywide emergency showed up Tuesday at the South County Civic Center in suburban Delray Beach to participate in the Cities Readiness Initiative, a pilot program to help cities deliver emergency medical supplies in the event of a large-scale public-health crisis. Volunteer interest has been nominal.
"I think it will be a little difficult, but normally when a disaster hits, you have people who come out of the woodwork who want to help, so we will probably get people that way," said Donna Pulda, who is heading up volunteer coordination through the United Way of Palm Beach County. In January 2006, the county was designated a Cities Readiness Initiative agency and charged with the task of treating and assisting with the needs of 1.3 million residents in 48 hours.
The county would receive immunizations from the strategic national stockpile within 12 hours. Those immunizations, in turn, would be sent to 45 distribution points where patients would be evaluated and volunteers would administer immunizations and antibiotics or assist in providing other life-saving procedures, said Philip Levenstein, a government operations consultant with the county's department of health.
It's estimated that as many as 600 people per hour could receive help over a two-day period if a massive crisis were to occur.
Levenstein, who brought his presentation to the civic center, outlined several potential scenarios. Volunteers, he said, would gather at a single place, board a bus and then be taken to one of the distribution points. As first responders, they and family members would be given priority in receiving needed medications. The mandate is to provide the antibiotics within 48 hours.
As the population shrinks during the summer, finding volunteers is always tough, said Adele Abbott, a volunteer coordinator with the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office. However, she estimated that the county expects to bring in about 500 volunteers as the program gets off the ground.
Where do I begin?
Only 55 volunteers showed up? But more disturbing to me is intimation that Palm Beach County could expect deliveries of vaccine from our national stockpile `within 12 hours' of a crisis. No, the article never said the stockpile has a `bird flu' vaccine, but that is what it intimates.
This article only mentions `flu' once, and also adds a biological attack to the scenario. Presumably, that's the scenario where a vaccine might be available. Of course, that depends on the type of bio attack.
But the real threat we face is pandemic influenza, not bioterrorism.
The truth is, there is no pandemic flu vaccine for the general population in the National Strategic Stockpile. Vaccines, when they do become available 6 months or more into a pandemic, are likely to arrive in small lots over a prolonged period of time. Palm Beach County won't be receiving 1.3 million doses all at once.
No community will.
I'm all for planning, drills, and exercises. And there is nothing wrong with preparing to dispense meds, or a `vaccine', for a mass casualty incident. And certainly, getting volunteers now beats beating the bushes for them once a disaster strikes.
Somewhere along the line, though, we need to dispense with the fiction that we have some magic pandemic vaccine on hand. I know it's reassuring to the public, it just isn't true. Florida hasn't even bought into the Tamiflu stockpile deal with the Federal government, leaving us desperately short of anti-viral medications as well.
I assume the county officials know all this. And the reporter as well. I just don't understand why this little factoid didn't make it into the article.
