HILARY KINDSCHUH / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Friday, November 17, 2006 6:00 pm
It’s not a matter of if a pandemic flu will hit, it’s a matter of when.
That was part of the message from Dan Noble, deputy chief medical officer for Nebraska, at a forum Saturday about preparing for pandemic flu.
About 40 Nebraskans shared their ideas about planning for a pandemic with officials from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“It behooves us all to prepare so we can lessen the impact of any pandemic,” Noble said.
Nebraska was one of four states asked to hold a community forum as part of the Public Engagement Project on Community Control Measures for Pandemic Influenza.
“We’re one of the better-prepared states,” Noble said.
The forums, which are meant to generate feedback at a national level, have also been held in Atlanta, Seattle and Syracuse, N.Y.
Seasonal flu strains are different from pandemic flu strains, which usually emerge once every 30 to 40 years, Noble said.
“Right now, the bird flu is causing human infections by contact with infected birds overseas,” Noble said. “We don’t know if it’s going to emerge as a pandemic strain.”
The bird flu has the potential to mutate into a highly infectious, widespread strain, Noble said.
According to the CDC, a flu pandemic would likely last about six to eight weeks and affect 30 percent of the exposed population, resulting in up to 2 million deaths and 10 million hospitalizations in the U.S.
Participants of Saturday’s forum broke into small groups to discuss proposed implementation of various community control measures that might help slow the spread of an flu pandemic.
“Some of those strategies have consequences,” and people need to think about the effect those consequences could have on society, said Jacqueline Polder, officer in charge of the national CDC division of global migration and quarantine.
Proposed community control measures include:
n Self-isolation: encouraging sick people to stay home until well, at least for a week.
n Self-quarantine: encouraging non-ill people who have home contact with sick people to stay at home for at least 7 days.
n Canceling large public gatherings.
n Closing schools and day care facilities for up to 12 weeks or for the duration of the local epidemic and keeping young children and teenagers from gathering in large groups.
n Encouraging people to work from home or take leave.
Non-pharmaceutical interventions such as the suggested community control measures will be important in the early stages of a pandemic, Noble said.
Antiviral medications probably won’t be available right away, and neither will a vaccine, because people will not have been exposed previously to the virus, Noble said.
One participant of the forum, Marcia Grave, an educator for the Lancaster County Citizens Corps, said people should prepare themselves and their families for a possible pandemic and “not expect to be rescued by public officials or systems.”
Possible preparations include gathering a six-week supply of food, a gallon of water per day per person and a six-month supply of routine medications, Grave said.
Another participant, Yvonne Leung, chairwoman of the Public Entity Risk Institute, a national nonprofit organization, said she had already studied the issue from a national perspective.
“I don’t want to see the big picture — that’s what I’m seeing already,” Leung said. “I wanted to see what the discussion was on a local level.
“What do people say not from 50,000 feet, but when they’re directly impacted and have to plan.”
Reach Hilary Kindschuh at 473-7120 or hkindschuh@journalstar.com