U.S. Health System Not Ready for Bioterror

The U.S. public health system remains largely unready to respond to an act of biological terrorism or a natural outbreak of disease, the Trust for America’s Health said in a report issued yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 22).

“The nation is nowhere near as prepared as we should be for bioterrorism, bird flu and other health disasters,” said Jeff Levi, the organization’s director.  “We continue to make progress each year, but it is limited.  As a whole, Americans face unnecessary and unacceptable levels of risk.”

The organization used 10 indicators to assess the readiness of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, according to USA Today.  These included the capabilities to manage a surge in patients and to disperse countermeasures from the Strategic National Stockpile, and whether states had sufficient laboratories and scientists for identification of natural or intentional outbreaks.

Only Oklahoma was found to meet all 10 indicators.  California, Iowa, Maryland and New Jersey tied for the lowest score, meeting only four of the measures, USA Today reported.

The trust also reported that the Centers for Disease Control has designated only 15 states as being capable of delivering drugs from the national stockpile to residents.  Eleven states and Washington, D.C. remain ill-equipped for testing of biological dangers, the report stated.

Despite billions of dollars in spending on pandemic preparedness, the rate of progress has not been adequate, according to the report.

CDC spokesman Von Roebuck said significant improvements have been made since Sept. 11, 2001, but that “more needs to be done” (Mimi Hall, USA Today, Dec. 13).

Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control issued a report this week on the training of hospital personnel for bioterrorism.  The report, based on data from 2003 and 2004, found that:

—Teaching hospitals received stronger training than their counterparts for bioterrorism, while hospitals certified by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations had prepared greater numbers of staff doctors, physician assistants, nurses, nurse practitioners and laboratory personnel for such an event;

—All but 12 percent of the 739 hospitals that responded to a survey said nurses had received training on identifying and treating victims of chemical or radiological agents, along with at least one of the following seven diseases — smallpox, anthrax, plague, botulism, tularemia, viral encephalitis and hemorrhagic fever;

—Eighty-six percent of clinical staff at hospitals that operated round-the-clock emergency departments or outpatient clinics had been trained to identify and treat smallpox, while 82 percent had received such training for anthrax infection (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention release, Dec. 11).

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