Terrorism exercise will test medical response

If terrorists attack with biological weapons, chances are thousands of vaccines will be needed in a short amount of time.

The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention has come up with an emergency response system to distribute such medication, using what is called the Strategic National Stockpile.

Cape Girardeau and four other Southeast Missouri health departments are formulating plans for a large Strategic National Stockpile exercise on Aug. 25.

An act of terror, or a large-scale natural disaster, would require rapid access to large quantities of medical supplies. According to the CDC's Web site, few local governments can afford to have large stockpiles of their own, so a national stockpile has been created as a resource for all.

The national stockpile contains, among other things, antibiotics, chemical antidotes, antitoxins and life-support medications.

The big training session will take place next month, but county officials will begin organizing the event this week. Jane Wernsman, the assistant director for Cape Girardeau County Public Health Center, said details of the training session won't be released until after Wednesday, when several community medical and emergency personnel will meet to discuss the plans.

Wernsman said this is just the second such SNS training done in Missouri. The other was done in the Kansas City area in June.

Don Pickard, the public information manager with the Kansas City Health Department, said the training was "incredibly beneficial."

"We can always put something on paper," he said. "But to determine whether or not something can work, you can't tell until you put it through the working process. The planning really involves several disciplines. Planning people, immunization folks, communicable disease folks, public information folks -- a broad spectrum of health professionals."

The training includes an evaluation at the end.

"Overall, we were pleased with how the plan did work, but we found some things that didn't work out so well and we're working on modifications now," he said.

The Cape Girardeau health department will seek 400 to 500 volunteers to help with the training. More information will be released after today.

bmiller@semissourian.com

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