Alaska wants enough doses to cover a fourth of the population
differing views (Thimk), demography, preparedness, haz com, H5N1 2 Comments »printed in the Anchorage Daily News which I don’t think intended this to be satire.
http://www.adn.com/life/health/birdflu/story/7939198p-7832627c.html
By MARY PEMBERTON, The Associated Press
Published: July 7, 2006Alaska is taking an aggressive stance against a possible outbreak of deadly bird flu in humans by placing its order early for medicines intended to slow the spread of a pandemic.
State officials will eventually order enough antiviral doses to cover about a fourth of Alaska residents.
Officials are being bold because the state is a crossroads for migratory birds, which could be carrying the virus here from other parts of the world….
“If we get to 2007, we will be on our road of having a reasonable supply,” Mandsager said….
State health officials this summer will come up with a map for distributing the drugs quickly if there is an outbreak. The plan calls for moving some of the antivirals from Anchorage to cities and towns such as Bethel, Nome and Kotzebue, and eventually to the villages.
“It won’t do any good to have the medicine if we don’t have a distribution plan,” Mandsager said…. emphasis added
With regard to antivirals as effective agents against an H5N1 human pandemic—see discussions here:
from EffectMeasure [It’s not the plan, it’s the planning. - http://ykalaska.uniblogs.org/2006/04/14/ its-not-the-plan-its-the-planning/]
“But an important issue raised by the IAFF (echoed by health care workers) is policy around prophylaxis of essential workers.”
http://effectmeasure.blogspot.com/ 2006/04/firefighters-and-bird-flu.html
Bird Flu: Communicating the Risk, Sandman & Lanard - http://ykalaska.uniblogs.org/2006/03/21/h5n1-risk-sandman/
