Mississippi Holds Pandemic Flu Drill

Aug. 17--HATTIESBURG -- Droves of moaning, wailing avian flu victims stampeded the Hattiesburg Lake Terrace Convention Center on Wednesday hoping to receive treatment, and the state health officials gathered inside were prepared; the building had been converted into a vaccine distribution center for a statewide pandemic flu drill.

The Mississippi Department of Health organized the exercise, one of four held throughout the state Wednesday, and about 200 MDH staff members from districts seven, eight and nine were on hand for the event.

Similar exercises were held at other points of distribution, or PODs: Desoto Civic Center in Southaven, the Leflore Civic Center in Greenwood and Humphreys Coliseum at Mississippi State University. MDH medical adviser Dr. Clay Hammack said the locations for such drills change each year.

"The primary purpose is to demonstrate our ability to vaccinate a large number of people quickly," Hammack said. "We're also demonstrating our ability to receive the vaccine from the national stockpile, break it down and distribute it."

Hammack said he hopes to prepare local health and rescue personnel in the kind of disaster response necessary in the event of a worldwide outbreak of avian flu or comparable widespread infectious disease, although a vaccine has yet to appear.

Hammack said Mississippi is considered to have the highest level of preparedness for a pandemic because of measures taken during Katrina.

Charles Daughdrill, incident commander for MDH, gave a short tour to observers from state emergency and medical agencies, including officials from MEMA, before local volunteers assumed the role of flu victims and were accepted into the center for mock processing and immunization.

Participants filled out short triage questionnaires, then met with banks of nurses and routers who sent them on to clinical evaluation units deeper inside the building.

State emergency personnel watched from an observation platform as the mock patients were sent through the vaccinations.

Participants bounced through a series of checkpoints offering information in English, Spanish and Vietnamese.

After a thorough evaluation and education, each patient met with a final bank of nurses who determined whether to vaccinate each participant, and then color-coded each person based on what type of vaccination would be most appropriate.

The mock patients then lined up for the final step where four groups of nurses administered the mock vaccinations.

Though this was a large-scale exercise, the event was scaled down to help accommodate volunteers who went through processing several times, Daughdrill said. If this were a real event, he said, the DOH would access the entire facility and post armed guards throughout. He said in the event of a real outbreak, facilities such as the one in Hattiesburg would be set up within 24 hours and should be able to handle 400 to 500 patients per hour around the clock.

"We hope we never have to do this," said Hammack. "But of course the possibility does exist whether it is the current avian flu strain or another strain that may come along in the future."

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