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December
20, 2005
Little Rock --
Gov. Mike Huckabee
has ordered the Department of Health and Human Services
to be prepared for a possible pandemic flu outbreak or
other health related emergencies.
The
announcement Tuesday is one of a wide range of disaster
preparedness issues the governor is developing.
"With
the lessons of Hurricane Katrina fresh on our minds, now
is the time to aggressively examine how equipped
Arkansas
is to deal with a bird flu outbreak or any other type of
statewide disaster," Huckabee said. "We simply
have to make sure the efforts of all state agencies are
coordinated."
The
governor made the announcement Tuesday at the DHHS
Division of Health in
Little Rock
.
A
pandemic occurs when there is a global outbreak of a
disease. An influenza pandemic occurs when a new strain
of the influenza virus emerges and spreads rapidly
around the world. A substantial part of the world's
population requires medical care and the health care
system is overloaded during the crisis.
An
influenza pandemic in 1918 caused more than 500,000
American deaths and 40 million deaths worldwide. Another
one in 1957 killed 70,000
U.S.
citizens and more than a million people worldwide. The
last pandemic in 1968 caused the deaths of 70,000 people
in the
U.S.
and 700,000 worldwide.
"Health
experts agree that a new influenza virus could emerge at
any time, and I have ordered the Division of Health to
implement several measures to prepare for a possible
pandemic flu outbreak or other health related
emergency," Huckabee said.
Those
measures include:
-
A
DHHS internal working group has been created and
charged with preparing a written pandemic flu plan.
-
The
division is in the late stages of the construction
of an emergency operations center to coordinate
health division response during a crisis.
-
A
Health Alert Network has been established to help
the division communicate with the healthcare
community about future scenarios.
-
The
Viral Laboratory capacity has been strengthened and
construction continues on the new state of the art
state health lab.
-
A
series of regional forums will be held around the
state to involve community health, education and
business leaders in pandemic planning.
-
The
governor and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human
Services Michael Leavitt will host a statewide
planning forum in early 2006.
-
An
antiviral stockpile is being created to be used in
the event of a pandemic outbreak.
The
governor will take the following steps to coordinate the
emergency preparedness effort:
-
A
governor's staff member will be assigned to
coordinate the collection of emergency action plans
such as earthquake, nuclear, major storm, epidemic,
bio-terrorism and others from all state agencies.
-
These
plans will be reviewed and integrated into the work
of DHHS
-
The
governor will release a finished report by April
2006
-
As
chairman of the National Governors Association, the
governor will integrate what is working well in
other states into the
Arkansas
plan.
The
governor said a statewide emergency plan has to be
written to deal with any type of emergency. It must
involve the roles that all state agencies will play in a
crisis.
"Certainly
the DHHS Division of Health will play a fundamental role
in just about any crisis, but we must keep in mind that
State Police, the National Guard, highway experts, and
human service caseworkers are just as crucial to a
coordinated response. In the past the Arkansas
Department of Emergency Management has been involved in
the fiscal issues in the days after a disaster, but a
major lesson of Katrina is to study how we are going to
rapidly move emergency response resources as a crisis
develops. The steps we are announcing today will help us
address those complex issues. "
DHHS
Director
John Selig
said the merger of the Department of Human Service with
the Health Department into one agency has laid a
foundation that is paying off now.
"Because
of the merger, we are simply better equipped to deal
with a wide range of serious health issues. As we saw
during the early days of Katrina, the provision of
mental health services, the coordination of clinics and
medical services, and our shared staffs working together
will allow us to better meet the health challenges we
will face in the future," Selig said.
Selig
said Dr. Paul Halverson, director of the DHHS Division
of Health, will coordinate the internal work on building
an emergency plan that works for all state and local
agencies involved in disaster relief.
Prior
to taking over the operation of the division, Halverson
worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
in
Atlanta
.
"Last
year, we were the only state in the nation to provide
flu shots and clinics for citizens in a single day. We
vaccinated 58,000 people in one day. The governor made
it clear he wants us to look at the systems that have
worked in the past and build a state of the art
emergency response system that will work in the
future," Halverson said.
The
DHHS Division of Health flu pandemic plan is available
to the public at www.pandemicflu.gov.
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