Yolo County, California Conducts Avian Flu Drill

A report from the Yolo County Health Department estimates that more than 35,000 deaths will occur in California alone depending on the infectivity of a pandemic influenza virus and its disease-causing potential.

Concerned about this alarming statistic, the health department conducted its first avian flu drill on June 10, 2004, at the University of California's Davis campus.

The purpose of the drill was to provide training to public health workers and other emergency medical providers to rapidly identify, respond to, treat and contain the spread of disease.

This past January, the health department conducted its second pandemic flu drill to further practice and refine early response activities.

The Avian Flu Outbreak Investigation Drill was developed as an "applied tabletop" with multiple health department units and partner agencies invited to simulate their actual response to a public health emergency.

The drill was set up as a collaborative model for epidemiologic response to a large-scale, communicable disease outbreak.

The local health department established three collaborative work groups involving representatives from multiple public health departments, local universities and health care and medical emergency response agencies.

These work groups were formed and met weekly to develop materials and identify staffing needs for: 1) conducting an epidemiologic investigation and preparing information about the avian flu; 2) implementing a mass vaccination clinic for several hundred vaccines; and 3) transporting and providing medical care for patients ill with the avian flu.

Each work group identified key elements to address, researched previously developed models and standard practices, determined a list ofsupplies, and figured out the number of staff needed and what skills they should know for their portion of the drill.

The disease investigation portion of the drill was in conjunction with a mass vaccination drill and included ambulance transport to local hospitals and clinics and use of the university telemedicine capacity.

The drill brought together more than 500 people, including representatives from local health department agencies, county mental health services, the American Red Cross, Disaster Medical Assistance Teams, the Emergency Medical Service, volunteer physicians and nurses, volunteer college students and community members. All participants wore surgical masks.

Ambulances transported victims and law enforcement officials offered security and crowd control. Members from the Yolo County Board of Supervisors, fire chiefs, law enforcement agencies and several television, radio and newspaper media also attended this event.

The high visibility served the purpose of educating the public about the public health response to a disease outbreak and possible mass treatments.

The avian flu drill was the first disease outbreak exercise in the nation to:

* Address a communicable form of the avian flu--cited by the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization as one of the greatest potential communicable disease risks to the world population;

* Coordinate a full-scale FIELD exercise to train health care personnel in epidemiologic investigation and implementation of control measures for responding to a large number of patients ill with or exposed to the avian flu; and

* Coordinate this effort with epidemiologists involving 12 county jurisdictions, state public health agencies and local universities.

Details: For more information on the Avian Flu Outbreak Investigation Drill or to download a copy of the report, visit www.yolocounty.org/org/Health/avianfludrill.asp.

In addition, NLC is gathering information and resources for use bylocal government officials, which can be found at www.nlc.org/Newsroom/press_room/news_alert/10359.cfm. The webpage will be updated as new information is identified, so check back regularly.