Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
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What medicines are available to treat the infected person in this par-
ticular case? You will discover this easily enough through dealing with
the primary caregivers at the medical center where the patient is checked
into. Medication to assist the patient (although not cure the disease) is
available currently.
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Who else in that medical center may be infected?
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Surely, the personnel at the medical center did everything possible to
keep this patient away from possibly infecting others. But did they all
take the kind of precautions necessary in this situation? Could the disease
have spread to either a caregiver or another patient? How many patients
have checked
out
of that facility in the time that this patient has been
there, thus raising the possibility (no matter how small it may be) that the
disease could be carried into the general population in your area?
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Contacts: You are lucky here in the sense that if there has been no spread,
you have your incident zone, and many of the people you need to have
on site to handle this situation are already in place. However, it is at this
point that the PHO would have to contact several individuals (see below).
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Local or regional doctors and/or knowledgeable research experts regard-
ing Avian Influenza
They will know how to treat it and how to contain it. You may find
that this sort of assistance and expertise may only be available at the
federal level, depending on your locality, and such contact needs to be
made as quickly as possible so the proper authorities and such can be
dispatched to your location.
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Neighboring Public Health officials
It is entirely possible, of course, that if a Avian Influenza case has been
discovered in your jurisdiction, that there may be others waiting in the
jurisdictions around you. Word must be spread to their Public Health
officials as quickly as possible to start any possible response there, and/or
to help you with your work in your own jurisdiction.
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Your agency's PIO
Someone is going to have to speak to the public about this incident.
The public will need to know about possible symptoms, and where to go to
get assistance if they are afraid of possibly having caught the disease. The
public will also want to know what precautions to take if they do not have
symptoms. Another thing to think about related to this is that in this age of
instant information, news will leak about this and the media will converge
on your locality, bombarding the Public Health Office with phone calls
and requests for more detailed status reports and interviews. The PIO needs
to be the person to handle all of this, as you will not have the time.
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Police and local and state government officials
You will need to work with both of these entities to discuss a possible
quarantine station if other cases exist, or to remove the current case from
