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WSU
would distribute drugs in case of bioterrorism attack
By
Amy Geiszler-Jones
If
there ever is a bioterrorism attack, WSU would become a designated
distribution site for antibiotics to take care of the university’s
thousands of employees and students, along with their families,
according to Sedgwick County’s response plan.
Other
designated distribution sites would include The Boeing Co., Bombardier
Aerospace Learjet Inc., Koch Industries, Raytheon Aircraft Co.,
and city and county government offices.
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Volunteers
needed
If
you would like to volunteer to be part of WSU’s bioterrorism
medical response teams, contact Marilyn Yourdon, 978-3640,
or marilyn.yourdon@wichita.edu.
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Preliminary
plans call for campus distribution sites to be set up in such buildings
as Fairmount Towers, the Rhatigan Student Center ballroom and the
Heskett Center to expedite the delivery of a one-day supply of doxycycline,
says Marilyn Yourdon, director of Student Health Services. Yourdon
is coordinating WSU’s role in the county’s bioterrorism
medical response plan.
The
Sedgwick County Health Department has been compiling a Metropolitan
Medical Response System since October 2000.
The
MMRS is a national, federally funded program to help cities develop
effective strategies for dealing with terrorism, according to Gloria
Vermie, the county’s MMRS coordinator. The Sedgwick County
MMRS is one of the first of 120 cities to receive its pharmaceutical
stockpile to counter bioterrorism.
The
MMRS covers a number of different areas, including a chemical attack.
The county had just started working on developing its bioterrorism
plan when the events of Sept. 11 and the subsequent anthrax incidents
occurred, Vermie said. They rushed to get their pharmaceutical cache
plan submitted to the Department of Health and Human Services, which
is handing out the funds for this nationwide effort.
The
county has stockpiled two million doses of doxycycline, enough to
cover one day of treatment. Doxycycline is an inexpensive yet very
effective antibiotic for treating such major bio-agents as anthrax,
tularemia and plague.
The
doses would also be distributed at other sites, including area hospitals,
agencies working with the homebound, schools and the general public.
The
county also took into account that it would need to supply antibiotics
to not just residents, but those who commute from other cities to
jobs or who are visiting Wichita.
Each
WSU employee and student would receive enough antibiotics to cover
their household. If your spouse works at another designated distribution
site, Vermie and Yourdon both stressed that you and your spouse
should discuss whose responsibility it would be to get the drugs.
"If
someone receives antibiotics for their household at one site, they’re
not to go to other sites because we only have so much," says Vermie,
a former Student Health Services employee and WSU graduate. "You
need to determine beforehand who will get the dosages for other
household members. Otherwise it may be your best friend or family
member who doesn’t get a dose."
Yourdon
is still in the planning stages for how WSU would handle the distribution
plan. She knows, however, that she’ll need volunteers for teams
that would staff the campus distribution sites to get information,
fill out forms and help with crowd control.
She
also would like to run a few drills.
"We
want to make this as non-hysterical as possible so that’s why
drills would help. If you didn’t do a drill, I don’t know
how you could expect this would go off," Yourdon says. "Being proactive
avoids confusion at the time of emergencies."
The
county health department was scheduled to run a mock bioterrorism
exercise at Wichita Northwest High School this week.
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