Mimi Khin Hall, Public Health Director, Plumas County, on the subject of Ebola Virus preparedness. I will be giving a public update on our local preparedness measures and a situation update on October 21 at the BOS meeting. Health officer Dr. Satterfield and I have been participating in calls with both California Department of Public Health and CDC. As part of our states county health executive team, I was in a call today with CDPH director Dr. Ron Chapman and communicate disease expert Dr. Gil Chavez. PDH has taken the approach of an abundance of caution. They have trained and drilled in the use of Personal Protective Equipment and isolation measures. With the heightened awareness and caution since the index case in TX, I have confidence in our local health care system. Dr. Satterfield has been providing health care facilities with the latest guidelines and protocol and they were tested and have been followed today at PDH for sure, including my getting responses from CDPH and CDC in an appropriate timeframe. My call with CDC October 8 confirmed there are 48 distinct contacts of the index case in Texas who are being monitored and tracked daily for the 21 day period. None of the family members or community contacts are exhibiting signs of transmission and the 21 day period us nearly over. That is good news regarding ease of transmission with members if the same household. The news spreads fear. Part of the reason for PPE you see in the news from Africa is the widespread nature of the epidemic affecting whole villages and the lack of water/soap/bleach, etc. The epidemic in Nigeria that started in July has been successfully ended. They are Ebola free because they have more infrastructure and resources than the other west African countries and took swift action in tracing contacts of every patient. Basic communicable disease investigation and intervention. In these countries, there is often no soap or running water. People are told to use ashes to wash hands because that is all they have available. The US should be able to stop the spread from this index case and the contacts, but it takes diligence at the local, index case level. This was not the situation in Dallas. Sorry for this long post that only scratches the surface for everyday people without a communicable disease/epidemiology background. My point is that we are prepared locally and also prepared to be over prepared and over cautious early in even suspecting a possible case until every aspect if potential exposure or risk has been identified. The next thing we will work on with health officer Dr. Satterfield and our emergency preparedness team is insuring the specifics of transfer protocols with EMS and which facilities and insuring transfer facilities are fully prepared. CDPH is providing guidelines in the next couple of days and we are standing by to receive and share those with local facilities. Dr. Chapman is reviewing numerous tools and recommendations prepared by numerous subject matter experts as we speak. The call I attended on Oct. 8 included the Health Commissioner in TX and his lessons learned. We are definitely taking those lessons seriously to be prepared for a potential local case. I am also readying our health officer authority and BOS resolution ahead of time in case there would be any future necessity for the health officer to issue an isolation and quarantine order. And yes, Carol. PDH has been a great partner and we are working closely together, with much thanks to Dr. Satterfield. Sorry for any typos. Im doing this on my phone.
Posted on: Fri, 17 Oct 2014 03:24:41 +0000
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