The Daily Iowan
03/08/06
Locals work on flu plan
By: Erika Binegar - The Daily Iowan
As avian flu continues to spread across the globe, efforts to create prevention
and response plans have increased in Iowa City.
But with separate plans at the university, county, and hospital levels, officials
said, coordination will be key.
At the university, the Pandemic Preparedness Task Force, created one month
ago, will use state and national plans, as well as other universities' designs, as
springboards for developing a strategy for Iowa City.
"I don't think we need to reinvent the wheel," said Chris Atchison, the chairman of
the task force. "That should help us move ahead more quickly."
Committee members will add coordination with the county's Public Health
Emergency Response Plan, approved Tuesday, to the list.
Its design is a "broad-based plan to respond to biological threats," said Ralph
Wilmoth, the director of the Johnson County Public Health Department; he
declined to disclose details until an assistant county attorney approves it for
release. It is split into categories to help the county address issues as they arise,
he said.
One such issue includes the possible spread of the avian bird flu, he added.
The avian influenza A (H5N1) virus, originally confined to Asia, is the deadly
strain responsible for 95 human deaths since 2003, according to the World
Health Organization. In the last month, animal cases have spread to more than
30 countries in Asia, Europe, and Africa. The virus has not yet developed the
ability to transfer from human to human.
"I think it's evident that the more places it is, the more possibilities to mutate,"
Atchison said.
The H5N1 virus could enter the United States via migratory birds, smuggled
birds, or smuggled poultry products, said Darrell Trampel, an extension poultry
veterinarian and poultry diagnostician at Iowa State University.
"The wider distribution of the virus around the globe probably increases the threat
of the virus entering our country by each of these three routes," he said in an email Tuesday.
U.S. government employees monitor migratory flyways, where migratory birds
cross paths, but Tara Smith, a UI assistant professor of epidemiology, said the
overall national preparedness plan released last winter is lacking in coordination.
In the effort to bypass a similar problem in Iowa City, Wilmoth and other publichealth officials sit on the UI's task force.
During its second meeting Monday, the group adopted set goals and objectives.
Atchison, an associate dean in the UI College of Public Health, said the work has
been divided into five sections, including structure and coordination, public-health
services, health-care services, continuity of operations, and communication with
parents, relatives, and other higher-education institutions.
Four to five committee members will "dig into each section" and evaluate them
for universitywide application and comprehensiveness, Atchison said. The task
force will "continually look at other organizations to make sure the plan fits," he
added. The members plan to present a finished product to the UI provost
following their last meeting, May 24.
E-mail DI reporter Erika Binegar at:
erika-binegar@uiowa.edu