Mock Emergency Exercise to Be Held in Eads
Free Flu Shots to Be Administered
September 24, 2004
Kiowa County Nursing Service will be hosting a mass vaccination clinic where key personnel responding to a simulated emergency situation and the public will receive free flu vaccinations.
The exercise will be held on Saturday, October 16, starting at 9:00 a.m. at the Kiowa County Courthouse meeting room at 1305 Goff St. in Eads.
Simultaneously, similar mass vaccination exercises will be held in nine surrounding Southeastern Colorado counties, including Baca, Bent, Cheyenne, Kiowa, Otero, Crowley, Las Animas, Prowers and Huerfano.
The exercise is intended to provide an opportunity for local public health and emergency response personnel to gain valuable experience in conducting mass immunizations as would be required in the event of an actual emergency situation, such as a bioterrorism event or a pandemic influenza outbreak.
Renay Crain, director and public health officer for Kiowa County said, "The exercise will provide an opportunity to test the skills of public health officials to ensure that they can respond to any public health emergency, such as influenza or smallpox pandemic or a terrorism incident."
Jackie Brown, director for Prowers County, said that the exercise is an outgrowth of mass immunization plans that counties throughout Colorado wrote and now are in the process of updating and refining.
The counties developed the plans in connection with statewide bioterrorism preparation work being directed by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Bioterrorism Program. The southeastern Colorado mass vaccination exercise will serve as the state’s major terrorism exercise for 2004. In 2003, the state program conducted a tabletop terrorism response exercise in which public health, law enforcement and emergency medical personnel from throughout the state participated.
Because the southeast region of Colorado was the first region in Colorado to put together such a plan, it was decided that this location would be the first area to host such an exercise.
She said, "Many man hours went into obtaining the funding and resources needed to make this exercise happen. If we can do well in a practice situation, we will be one step ahead in the event of an actual emergency."
In the event of an actual public health emergency, the Kiowa County Nursing Service would need to vaccinate the entire population of residents living in Kiowa County within three to five days.
At the October practice event, key personnel, as required in the response plan, will be vaccinated to ensure that those personnel can proceed with the duties that would be required of them if a real emergency occurred.
Key personnel to be vaccinated for flu at the event include first responders; emergency medical technicians; public works personnel; hospital personnel; clinic volunteers; and law enforcement officers and their families.
After key personnel have been immunized, the public also can receive a free flu shot. Any flu shots given after October 16 will not be free.
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment is providing the 10,000 doses of flu vaccine, which will be used in the nine counties in the southeast region of Colorado. Doses will be allocated by county population and provided free of charge to participants.
For more information about the exercise, call the Kiowa County Nursing Service at 719-438-5782.