County preps for flu pandemic
Local officals concerned about avian flu
COLUMBIA BASIN — The Grant County Health District and Grant County Department of Emergency Management are in the process of preparing for the next pandemic flu outbreak.
An emergency response plan for Grant County has been established by county health officials and emergency management personnel. That plan can be used for a variety of emergency situations, including pandemic influenza.
One major component of the plan is establishing a central location where people from Grant County can be transported to a hospital facility.
Central Washington Hospital in Wenatchee is the designated transport location as it has the largest capacity available to expand to a 500-bed facility if needed, said GCDEM director Sam Lorenz.
Smaller hospitals would be in charge of taking care of patients when first diagnosed, and if further care is needed they would then be transported to a more central location such as Central Washington Hospital.
The role of the GCDEM would be to transport supplies and assist the GCHD if an area had to be isolated.
Two years ago a mock response plan was implemented via the Internet, allowing the GCDEM to transmit data to the state department of health as the emergency was taking place.
It was really successful and cut down the chance for errors to be made in the transmitting of patient data, Lorenz said.
More emergency response scenarios took place this summer in Grant County simulating various human pandemic influenza cases.
"The biggest message for us was to realize the scope of the problem will be well beyond the health on individuals, it will be impinging on people going into stores, schools, businesses, restriction of travels," said GCHD health officer Dr. Alexander Brzezny.
"It's not a question of if but when," Brzezny said of the pandemic flu striking.
Of most recent concern to health officials is that a pandemic flu will strike from a strain of the avian flu virus, H5N1, that could mutate and spread easily from human to human.
Avian influenza is a infectious disease of birds caused by type A strains of the influenza virus. Direct or indirect contact of domestic flocks with wild migratory waterfowl and live bird markets are considered to be common causes of epidemics. The disease was first identified in Italy more than 100 years ago.
As far as if or when the avian flu could mutate, Brzezny said even experts on the national level do not know for sure.
"Even though the avian flu has been capable of infecting some humans, it has not mastered the capacity from jumping to human to human," Brzezny said. "The moment it masters the capacity of jumping from human to human, it will be pandemic."
According to the World Health Organization, the first documented infection of avian influenza virus in humans occurred in Hong Kong in 1997 when the H5N1 strain caused severe respiratory disease in 18 humans, of whom six died. The infection of humans coincided with an epidemic of highly pathogenic avian influenza, caused by the same strain, in Hong Kong's poultry population.
At the local level, further planning of the county's emergency response plan to discuss the possibility of an avian flu outbreak and other emergencies will be discussed at a leadership meeting Dec. 12. The meeting is to gather input from health and law enforcement personnel about county emergency preparations. The meeting will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Advanced Technologies and Education Center at Big Bend Community College.
"The purpose of this event is to lay out this is where we are in pandemic flu planning, these are the projects and detailed plans we need people to think about," said GCHD assessment coordinator Roger Arango.