Posted on 02/22/2007 7:41:52 AM PST by Gritty
A thousand body bags. Computer chips to plant on corpses to better track the dead. More saws for autopsies.
The Erie County Health Department wants to prepare for a swift- moving flu pandemic in which hundreds of people die. Health officials say they need $300,000 for basic items.
The amount includes nearly $100,000 for laboratory supplies to identify the influenza strain, $23,000 for protective gowns and eyewear for workers, and $73,000 for 800,000 masks to be given to residents - still too few for the county's 930,000 people.
The Health Department also wants $27,000 for autopsy saws, bone-dust collectors and other protective equipment. It wants $5,000 for three laptop computers that will keep health personnel connected, no matter where they are, and $25,000 for 1,000 body bags to add to the hundreds the county already holds.
"Some of these supplies are already on hand," said Gregory Skibitsky, deputy health commissioner for emergency medical services. "But if you have a pandemic event, you never know how many people are going to be affected. You would have to share material and resources. The idea behind this proposal is to be able to stockpile a lot of these supplies."
Not every county is bracing to this degree. The Monroe County Health Department, for example, has stockpiled masks, gowns and gloves for public health workers, said spokesman John Ricci. But Monroe County has not warehoused masks for even a percentage of its 730,000 residents, he said.
"There is a debate right now about masks and what kinds of masks would afford protection," he said. "Is it more appropriate for the ill person, to prevent spreading, or is it more appropriate for everyone to wear to avoid catching some kind of illness? And there are all different kinds of masks."
The federal government's Strategic National Stockpile contains large quantities of medicine and medical supplies for a public health emergency severe enough to strain local supplies.
In theory, the supplies can reach their destination within 12 hours after local and federal authorities agree they are needed.
In documents to lawmakers, the Erie County Health Department describes in stark terms the effects of a pandemic: Hospitals would be overwhelmed, with health-care workers at greatest risk of infection. Medical resources would be rationed.
"In a pandemic of a moderate influenza strain, it is estimated that as many as 270,000 Erie County residents would become ill during a four- to eight-week period," health officials wrote. "If the outbreak is of a severe strain, such as the 1918 epidemic, these numbers would be significantly higher."
In 1918, the Spanish flu killed about 50 million people worldwide, including 675,000 in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Many people in the United States died in two other pandemics: 69,800 in 1957 and 34,000 in 1968. The availability of vaccines and antibiotics lessened the numbers of deaths.
County health officials started pondering their list of necessities more than six months ago, when worldwide attention had turned to the avian flu, believed to be spread to humans by direct contact with infected birds or contaminated surfaces.
So far, the World Health Organization reports a small number of avian flu cases, 274 worldwide, with 167 deaths. But the organization, through its Web site, also says its experts believe the world is closer to another influenza pandemic than at any time since 1968.
The U.S. flu season will draw to a close in a couple of months. County health officials, nevertheless, are pushing lawmakers to let them spend the $300,000 as soon as possible because workers need to be trained on some of the new equipment. State government is expected to reimburse the county for 36 cents of every dollar its spends.
Some of the items would be used without a pandemic. The medical examiner's office, for example, will start tagging bodies with computer chips as soon as the chips arrive, Skibitsky said. And they always need body bags. The health lab always needs some of the supplies on its list.
The request has stalled in the Legislature because of the way the administration of County Executive Joel A. Giambra proposes to come up with $300,000. The money had not been included in this year's budget because officials had reasoned they could use money set aside but not used last year by the Medicaid health program for the poor.
Lawmakers are not thrilled with that idea. Legislator Cynthia Locklear, D-West Seneca, chairwoman of the Health Committee, is among those arguing that if the Health Department and county budget-makers knew last year that they would need the money this year, they should have budgeted for it.
Her committee sent the message Tuesday that if the supplies are to be purchased, funds would have to be found in this year's budget.
Do they think they're more at-risk in that community? Or just better prepared?
Flu ping...
Thanks for the ping, froufrou.
Pinging y'all.
Wasn't this stuff 'Breaking News' about, oh, three YEARS ago??
It sure seems like it's been a very long time that I've been hearing the same "pandemic" drumbeat, and we've yet to see anything more than a smattering of deadly cases -- I think five in the whole State of CA since 2004 or someting like that.
HARDLY an epidemic, far less a pandemic.
If there's a pandemic of anything, here, it's a pandemic of various government agencies using the premise of a flu threat as a basis to raid the State and Federal treasuries.
Not more at risk - just trying to be better prepared.
NY counties went through a series of pandemic planning exercises last year that revealed some serious gaps in preparedness for pandemic disease.
More counties in the US ought to be engaged in some serious introspection - most haven't even begun asking the questions.
Pandemics happen. Just because 'bird flu' has dropped off of the media radar, doesn't mean it has gone away. We all know that the typical newsroom denizen has the attention span of a two year old. (Except of course when it comes to, say, 16 words in a state of the union speech.)
'Bird flu' is an existential, but not the only, pandemic disease threat. Public health preparedness has been allowed to erode in a way that makes the erosion of our military preparedness under Clinton look minor by comparison.
I know. I don't think we've done much where I am, and that's bad because now we have the new wounded troops' facility. They should get the best level of care possible.
Autopsies to be done on people dead of bird flu? Sounds risky to me.
Boondoggle money.
ping (Thanks, LucyT!)
I didn't post it in "Breaking News". It doesn't warrant it.
The media has gotten tired of it anyhow. They have gone on to more important things like, "Who Is Anna Nichole Smith's Baby's REAL Father"!!??
But rest assured, if we do have a pandemic, it will be "Bush's fault!", just like Katrina.
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