Maloney Discusses Biodefense Capacity With DOH Commissioner
WASHINGTON, March 14–The unsettling spate of anthrax attacks last fall has prompted U.S. Rep. James H. Maloney, D-Conn., to focus on the challenges Connecticut faces in guarding its residents from a bioterrorist attack.
Maloney met yesterday with the state’s Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Joxel Garcia to discuss how Connecticut would spend federal funds to enhance its readiness to deal with a biological threat or attack.
“We had two separate conversations,” Maloney said. “There are two pots of money that Connecticut is getting.”
Some of the expected $14 million in federal grants would be used for new centers to coordinate responses to bioterrorist attacks, but the larger portion would be spent on improving existing facilities and technologies.
The meeting was one of a series between Maloney and Garcia since the death of 94-year-old Oxford resident Ottilie W. Lundgren on Nov. 21 at Griffin Hospital in Derby. Lundgren was the fifth American to die of an anthrax infection linked to one of the anthrax-laced envelopes sent through the mail since last autumn.
Griffin Hospital Vice President Bill Powanda said that her death put Connecticut on high alert for future biological disasters.
“Clearly the lessons learned were to expect the unexpected,” he said. “This was another dramatic reinforcement that you will never know what could happen at the local community hospital.”
Because people are likelier to be treated at a local community hospital than at large urban or university hospitals, legislators should reconsider how federal funds are doled out to states that want to upgrade their equipment and overall preparedness.
“Congress needs to rethink allocating resources to community hospitals around the country versus the urban tertiary-care [specialized] hospitals,” Powanda said in a telephone interview. “Griffin’s experience of handling the case should build the confidence in their local community hospitals’ abilities to diagnose and treat illnesses like Lundgren’s.”
On the other hand, urban areas also need to focus on potential threats, which is why the Connecticut Department of Public Health is applying for two federal grants that would provide the state with more than $14 million to improve its public health infrastructure, said William Gerrish, the department’s spokesman.
Gerrish said the state wants to use a small part of that money for two “centers of excellence” that would be used for planning regional coordination, education, clinical care and research on bioterrorism. The centers, he said, would “take a leadership role in response to a large-scale bioterroism event.”
He pointed out, however, that more than $12.5 million of the funds would be used to augment the state’s approach toward broader areas, including education and training, laboratory capacity, surveillance and disease studies as well as preparedness planning based on the guidelines posted by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Everybody is on a learning curve, and we are still attempting to get something in order,” said Dr. Roberto Ferraro, the acting director of Waterbury’s Department of Public Health.
Although a lot of the potential improvements depend on federal funds, Ferraro said that Waterbury learned how to gear up to deal with emergency situations during the Y2K scare several years ago and is therefore already prepared to cope with life-threatening biological agents. He added that the city continues to seek out better alternatives to safeguard its residents.
Waterbury has an active Local Emergency Planning Committee, which includes representatives of the city health agency, Waterbury’s hazardous materials (HazMat) team, the police and fire departments, the city’s two hospitals, ambulance services, emergency medical services, emergency radio communications services, the Red Cross and the Salvation Army.
The committee also recently installed a computer data base listing the street location of every Waterbury facility that stores or manufactures a chemical on site so that the Public Health Department, the fire department and HazMat units can refer to it if an explosion occurred that would require immediate evacuation of that area.
“Remember the Waterbury Health Department’s motto,” Ferraro said. ” ‘We are as near to you as you are to your telephone.’ Sometimes we can help, sometimes we can’t, but we will be able to put people in the right direction.”
“People are frightened by all of this,” he added. “If we can at least calm them down, then that is of value.”
In addition to the Maloney-Garcia meeting, bioterrorism was on the agenda as several biodefense experts gathered yesterday at the Capitol to discuss pilot programs that are trying to address inadequate public health infrastructures, including the Rapid Syndrome Validation Project, an Internet-based software program that lets doctors update information on their patients’ symptoms and that alerts local public health officials if the data point toward a possible biological infection.
Published in The Waterbury Republican-American, in Waterbury, Connecticut.
