Copyright 2006 MediaNews Group, Inc. and Mid-States Newspapers, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
By JONATHAN GRAHAM
Sentinel & Enterprise (Fitchburg, Massachusetts)
Hundreds of volunteers are needed throughout the region to help man vaccination stations in the event of a bird flu epidemic, officials said Thursday.
Deputy Fire Chief Michael Spano, Fitchburg’s emergency management director, said that once a vaccine is available, communities will need to quickly call up hundreds of residents to help dole it out.
“We need to bolster the volunteerism, that portion of it that would be on the ground level, and we’re just getting going on that now,” Spano said.
Officials are preparing for bird flu — the name for the deadly H5N1 strain of avian flu that has killed more than 100 people, mostly in Asia — to come to the United States.
States preparing for a possible bird flu outbreak should focus on how to contain the virus as a vaccine will be unavailable for several months, the head of the Centers for Disease Control said Wednesday.
“Out of the starting gate there won’t be any vaccine, it’ll take some time. So we’ve got to look at old-fashioned ways of slowing the virus down,” Dr. Julie Gerberding told The Associated Press.
The virus is typically spread from direct contact with contaminated birds, but scientists fear the virus will mutate and be passed person-to-person, which could lead to a pandemic.
Fitchburg and Leominster would each have four vaccine distribution facilities, with about 60 people in each one.
Charles Coggins, Leominster’ emergency management director, said the state told him last week that the vaccine, once available, needs to be completely distributed in less than 48 hours.
“It requires a huge number of people,” Coggins said.
Each town of about 10,000 people is supposed to have about 70 people to run a center, Nashoba Associated Boards of Health Executive Director James Garreffi said.
About half of those people should have some type of medical background, Garreffi said.
NABH works with Ashburnham, Ashby, Ayer, Lancaster, Lunenburg, Shirley and Townsend.
Garreffi said finding the volunteers is a difficult task, but the NABH is working with the individual town boards to get out the word.
“We’d like to get out some of the most up-to-date information about what people can do for themselves and also provide them with some opportunity to volunteer,” Garreffi said.
Spano and Garreffi said retired doctors, nurses and dentists, as well as anybody with basic emergency medical training are the sort of people towns and cities need.
Spano said he wants to train a “core group” of volunteers.
“Those people would be able to disseminate the training among a lot of other people,” Spano said.
Officials are being advised on how to perform “just-in-time training” which would give volunteers the necessary training the day they are needed.
Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.