|
|
|
Bioterrorism: Could It Happen Here?
|
Business New Haven
10/15/2001
By: Lori Green
|
Health and government officials nationwide are preparing for a new threat of terrorist attack - the unleashing of deadly diseases. The federal Centers for Disease Control & Prevention have requested that hospitals be on guard for suspicious illnesses that may be the result of biological weapons. BNH interviewed the division director of the Infectious Disease Division of the state's Department of Public Health, James Hadler.
Can physicians quickly identify symptoms of potential bioweapons such as anthrax, plague, botulism toxins, and smallpox?
Some certainly can, but there is a need for more awareness so that more doctors can more readily identify the diseases if confronted with them. There has been some training going around Connecticut, but trainers haven't reached that many [medical professionals] yet.
How do we improve communication between and among local, state and federal health officials?
There already have been a lot of efforts over the past three years. All states have gotten funding passed down by Congress for bioterrorism preparedness. Included in the funding is a sort of instruction that funds can be used to enhance the communications infrastructure. The Centers for Disease Control can communicate with us through a secure network; they can put out an alert right away that we can all see immediately. On the local side, we have made sure that there is a secure dial-in network as well as rapid fax capability so that all health departments in the state have access. We've used this for messages about the West Nile virus as well as what we're doing in the wake of the WTC. We have e-mail with every acute care hospital, but we need to improve it and need a more formal system for acute-care hospitals and emergency personnel.
What are ways we can improve our ability to respond to attacks with biological weapons?
This is a question for police, emergency responders and the FBI. We have a different kind of response to people getting sick and why. If the event is recognized early, we intervene and try to prevent spread. It depends much on the agent being used. For example, for an anthrax type of agent, it's not transmitted person to person and people may not know it. The incubation period can be highly variable - days to weeks. The goal here is to recognize who has been exposed and get them antibiotics. Recognition will come through people being diagnosed who have been admitted to hospitals. Hours can make a difference. We need to help law-enforcement officials and to find out who needs antibiotics.
What problems would hospitals face?
There are a couple kinds of problems. One is recognizing that a problem is occurring - the earlier the better from an isolation perspective. They will need to protect staff. The other side is adequate capacity to handle things. We didn't get overloaded in WTC because most people died. Response hospitals are in the frontline and must be able to handle large numbers of people injured or sick and have systems for quickly letting other people know. Once things are recognized, the bigger thing is caring for more sick people than they're equipped to handle, but one thing we learned from the WTC is that you're not alone any more.
How do you decide who gets antibiotics?
There are reserve antibiotic supplies that can be delivered in hours. But if you have to make a choice at the time, it involves a number of people from the governor's office to the federal government. Part of what will be informing the judgment will be the best guess of who has been exposed. This comes from the doctors and us interviewing patients. There will be some who just want to take them and that's where we need to keep the supply from diminishing. We can take a firm stand if necessary and have police enforcement.
The other side is smallpox where early recognition is critical and so is the reporting of it. Smallpox untreated is highly fatal. Not many people are immune right now and it's highly, highly contagious even within 15 minutes. The goal there is once it's recognized, report it to us and then the CDC. The key is to isolate and quarantine the individuals or whole towns for three to four weeks. Then, everybody in the area will be vaccinated against smallpox. The U.S. government military has more than ten million doses of the vaccine but more probably won't be produced until 2004. There are sizable stocks that can be used very effectively. A person with smallpox is infectious for a week or two. If they survive they are immune. There's only a short time that you're infectious and during that time you can try to vaccinate. That would require detailed tracking and quarantine laws. Not everyone will want to be restricted but it would be necessary to control the spread. With 30 to 40 percent chance of dying of smallpox, that would be a disaster in no time.
Will practice for bioterrorism attacks be included in upcoming emergency-response drills?
I'm not the one to make the decision. We had a practice last spring and last December, [but] not full-scale. There will be more in all states all over the country with more frequency because we have to have all of the players there and understand each other's roles.
What does the public need to know?
It's worthwhile that the public knows that there is a fair degree of preparedness already. As soon as people concentrate their energies, a lot can be done. No one is alone in responding. The question remains as to how easy it is to expose a lot of people at once in a large geographic area. There is safety in numbers. Any individual's chance [of becoming infested] is very small. The best thing is not to panic.
|
Go FirstGo PreviousGo
NextGo LastGo
to Index
|
|
