Emergency room physicians, doctors and health care workers are on alert and working to appease of the fears for people concerned about bioterrorist attacks against the United States. Bioterrorism is defined as the use of biological agents to cause mass casualties, and Mary Currier, the state epidemiologist, said the Department of Health is working with the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency and the University of Mississippi Medical Center to enhance surveillance for diseases.
“The state laboratory has been improved as far as our ability to diagnose these diseases,” Currier said. “There is still work to be done, and you can always improve, but the surveillance system will help a lot.”
Since Mississippi has been developing a plan against bioterrorism and infectious diseases. Officials have been giving seminars across the state to raise awareness of the problem at hand.
“Mississippi received almost $530,000 in federal funds for the 2001 fiscal year to develop its anti-bioterrorism network,” State Health Officer Ed Thompson, said.
Thompson said most emergency room physicians are already trained to spot symptoms associated with biological agents. His office is planning a series of workshops to bring family doctors up to speed on what to look for.
“Our main line of defense is the family physician,” Thompson said.
He said diagnose victims of a biological attacks could be difficult because early symptoms are similar to the common flu. Currier said the main thing people need to know is that treatment after exposure to a bioterrorist attack can be effective.
“However, precautions like taking antibiotics before being infected don’t work,” Currier said.
Hospital directors across the state have heightened awareness of potential danger but are confident that Mississippi is as protected as can be.
“We are low in probability to be struck by terrorists. I’m aware of it, but at the same time I don’t expect it,” John Nelson, medical director of Forrest general hospital in Hattiesburg, said.
The state has a system to track trends of infection and alert doctors to possible threats. Each day emergency rooms statewide are sent request forms faxed from the state Department of Health asking for specific details about the current diseases they are treating.
There are over 100 emergency rooms in the state and each form is looked over every day by one of nine state epidemiology nurses. The forms are scanned to make sure that there are no increases in problems in emergency rooms and entered into a computer that is accessed by state Department of Health officials.
If problems do occur, the Health Department can distribute antibiotics or vaccines if needed.
“We have access to the national stockpile of medicine from (the Center for Disease Control) and can get them within 12 hours of request, then distribute them to the hospitals,” Currier said. “Although dangerous, anthrax and other diseases are not new problems.”
Currier said anthrax is an ancient problem.
“In the past, we’ve had animal cases, and only a few isolated human cases, and they contracted it from the infected animal skins,” Currier said.
“Although intentionally spread, the cases witnessed recently are extremely rare, because this disease is very uncommon,” Currier said.
Currier believes the risk to our state is small.
“All cases have been from letters in the mail, which were addressed to large corporations, media, and government officials, so the risk for the normal citizen-whether student or housewife-is very low,” Currier said. “We are very precautious and doing risk assessment constantly.”
On Nov. 1, staff at Oktibbeha County Hospital will attend a seminar given to discuss the recent anthrax scares. This seminar is not open to the public but is exclusively for doctors and nurses at the hospital.
Ella Frese, nurse administrator for the Longest Student Health Center at Mississippi State, said they are not doing anything any differently.
“We have attended several seminars given in order to learn more about potential problems,” Frese said.
Seminars have been going on across the state on an almost a daily basis to teach the medical professionals. Currently, the Department of Health is working on a summary of bioterrorism that will be available on the Internet and in doctors’ offices.