County Prepared in Event of Flu Outbreak

By Faith Ford, The News Herald, Panama City, Fla.

Oct. 8–Bay County Health Department Director Peter Sylvester compares the threat of a flu pandemic to the threat of a catastrophic hurricane.

Do not live in daily fear of a Hurricane Katrina, he said, but at the same time, do not make the same mistakes made before the devastating storm.

“I think part of the problem is not everybody thinks (preparation is) necessary, just like not everyone thought it was necessary to have good evacuation plans in place for hurricanes,” Sylvester said.

Avian influenza, or bird flu, is an infection caused by bird flu viruses. Bird flu does not usually infect humans, according for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but several cases have been recorded.

The H5N1 bird flu virus in Asia has incited new fears of a pandemic like the 1918 Spanish flu outbreak that killed about 50 million people. Few more than 100 human cases have been confirmed — mostly in poultry workers — but experts warn that if the virus begins spreading rapidly from person to person, then the result could be a worldwide health crisis.

“When a pandemic occurs, one of the things that allows it to occur is the fact that there’s been enough antigenic drift in the virus that people who normally would have some degree of immunity in the community don’t,” Sylvester said.

“It’s not just the elderly and the young. It’s across all ages so that healthy, young people you think don’t get sick — your teachers, your government workers, your firemen, policemen, virtuous, healthy people — they’re all stricken just as bad.”

Sylvester said there is no way of knowing when a pandemic might erupt or what disease might cause such an outbreak.

“This is not something that you can truly be prepared for,” he said. “You still have to prepare, but you have to prepare realistically.”

The Community Infection Control Task Force — a grouping of Health Department, hospital and government officials — plans for disasters such as a bioterrorist attack. Sylvester said there is no written plan for a flu pandemic, but existing plans would provide the framework for a new, tailored plan if a pandemic struck.

“We could be facing a bioterrorist event or we could be facing some other natural disaster event that is different from influenza, so we have to be more generalized in our preparation as well as flexible,” Sylvester said.

On a state level, Sylvester said Florida might be better prepared than other states because of a fine-tuned surveillance and communication system.

“If we’re not ahead of everybody else, then there isn’t anybody ahead of us,” he said.

There still are challenges to overcome at the local level. One, Sylvester said, is creating a plan to keep essential community functions running with workforce down as low as 20 percent.

“Frankly, I’m not exactly sure how you do that,” he said.

Local hospitals have disaster plans in place.

Art Chance, a vice president at Bay Medical Center, said the staff trains for hurricanes, tornadoes, bioterrorist attacks and other disasters on a regular basis.

To keep staff members on their toes, Kimberley Turney, the infection control coordinator at Gulf Coast Medical Center, said a disaster team makes weekly rounds quizzing them about their response in a disaster or “code yellow” situation.

“Every year we worry about a possible flu pandemic, not just for avian flu,” Turney said.

Still, she said, preparing for a pandemic is easier said than done.

“I always think that we’re going to learn from situations,” she said. “We’ve never had a big airplane crash or a big disaster thing really happen (here) so there’s always going to be a learning curve.

“Can you ever be prepared? You can be prepared on paper, but when it actually happens, can anybody ever be prepared?”

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