Michigan prepared for pandemic

[Guest guest]

Michigan prepared for pandemic

Kathy Barks Hoffman The Associated Press

LANSING — Every day, doctors and hospitals go online to report to the

state what diseases they're seeing around Michigan.

Through that electronic monitoring, state health officials can

instantly pinpoint signs of disease outbreaks and know where they're

occurring. In the case of a flu pandemic, that up-to-the-moment

information could prove invaluable.

" It sometimes took us hours or days to find where disease outbreaks

were " in the past, said T.J. Bucholz, spokesman for the Michigan

Department of Community Health. Now, with the monitoring in place, " it

really reduces the response time that it takes to make decisions that

would save lives. "

But it's the hands-on practice dealing with disasters in recent years

that have given health officials their best test of what would work

and what wouldn't if a flu pandemic hit.

The power outage that affected part of Michigan and other states in

August 2003, for instance, required state and local officials to work

together to make sure people had enough food and water and some way to

stay cool in the blistering summer heat.

Grocery stores in southeast Michigan ran out of water; fuel pumps at

gasoline stations didn't work once electricity was cut; and no one

could get money out of ATM machines. Since a flu pandemic could create

a similar scenario if enough people were sickened or quarantined, the

power outage was good practice, Bucholz said.

Dr. Jackie , director of the Office of Public Health

Preparedness, said the state also has plenty of experience helping

vulnerable populations, especially children, the elderly and the disabled.

It has created networks through the state Agency on Aging, local

health departments, schools and other organizations to make sure no

one falls through the cracks, whether in a natural disaster or a

health emergency.

" We really do that every year when we have ice storms and breakdowns

in services, " said. " We have a whole system in place and it's

been in place for many years. "

The state has hundreds of pharmacists working statewide voluntarily to

be prepared for a disease outbreak. It has loaded up emergency centers

and staff with hand-held radios, ham radios and satellite phones to

make sure everyone can communicate.

It's also working on a modular emergency medical system, or surge

system, that would take people away from hospitals and instead send

them to facilities such as a school gymnasium outfitted with beds and

medical equipment to deal with sick or injured people. Local

governments and hospitals are looking at their own systems for

handling large numbers of sick people.

That could be especially important in a flu pandemic, said,

because the state estimates it could have 51,000 ill individuals who

might need hospitalization in a moderate outbreak.

Although health officials wouldn't give the number of spaces available

in hospitals, they said more hospital beds would be needed in these

satellite locations — and possibly in other locations if the pandemic

was larger than expected.

Then, " we would need federal assistance, " said.

In the 1918 flu pandemic, few cases had been reported in late

September, but there were 21,541 cases and 922 deaths by the time the

pandemic peaked in the state in late October, according to Azar,

deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Back then, a nurse and a doctor had to travel by a train handcar to

reach loggers at remote logging camps in the Upper Peninsula. They

loaded sick people onto mattresses on a flatbed car and brought them

to where they could be treated.

Those kinds of scenarios would be far rarer if a flu pandemic struck

today. But Michigan still has plenty of remote spots, and its urban

areas are far more crowded than the cities that existed early in the

last century, presenting new challenges.

The state has received $9.8 million from the federal government to

prepare for a flu pandemic. Of that, more than 80 percent has gone to

hospitals, emergency management officials and local health departments

and their partners so they can buy medical supplies.

According to the Web site for the U.S. Department of Health and Human

Services, the federal government is picking up the tab for about 1.5

million doses of the antiviral drug Tamiflu for Michigan, while the

state will pay for about 1.1 million more doses, with 25 percent of

the cost being picked up by the federal government.

The state Department of Community Health has asked for $16.7 million

to cover its share and is awaiting legislative approval on its

supplemental budget request. Half the Tamiflu has been received so

far, and the rest is expected to be delivered in early January,

Bucholz said.

Some hospitals and local health organizations also are stockpiling

Tamiflu, said Dr. Eden Wells, the MDCH's pandemic flu coordinator.

Among the questions that would have to be decided if a pandemic struck

was whether schools should be closed. Local health officers and

superintendents probably would make the decision together, although

the governor could issue an across-the-board executive order, said.

State and local health officials, along with hospitals, emergency

medical technicians, faith-based organizations and groups such as the

Red Cross have participated in one or more of the 90 flu pandemic

exercises state health officials have run in the past year and a half.

" All the local health departments ... are doing mass vaccination

exercises, " said.

The state also has created a Web site on emergency preparedness for

the public and health care workers to check that gives information

about quarantines, disease prevention, and what to do in a natural,

chemical, radiological or biological disaster.

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