New Hampshire Gets Ready for Bird Flu
Nov. 20, 2005 — -- The rest of the country may be unprepared for the bird flu, but New Hampshire is taking matters into its own hands.
The state is running an expensive and elaborate drill to prepare for an outbreak.
The scenario: Homeland security has quarantined the state's largest university, and health officials are scrambling to figure out what killed a student there. Hundreds more may be seriously ill.
"We believe that what we're doing today is really in some respects our mid-term exam for how we're really going to function in a true emergency," said Mary Anne Cooney, New Hampshire's medical director.
In the mock outbreak, hospitals are overwhelmed and police are having trouble isolating the infected. There is not enough vaccine or Tamiflu.
"The best thing about this is we're learning things every day and we cannot … be satisfied until our plans are the best they possibly can be to protect the public health," said John Stephens, the New Hampshire Heath and Human Services commissioner.
A similar real-life scenario already has unfolded in China. The government has locked down a village after a 24-year-old woman died of avian flu. She is the first confirmed bird flu fatality in the country.
Congress has still not acted upon President Bush's request for more than $7 billion to combat a potential epidemic, and New Hampshire is unwilling to wait.
"No one knows when this is going to hit or if it's going to hit at all," Cooney said. "We know that in New Hampshire, we didn't want to be caught unaware -- that it was essential for us to be prepared."
Now, having completed the drill, New Hampshire must face new dilemmas -- inadequate laws to enforce a quarantine and ethical dilemmas about who should be the first to receive proper medication.
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