Originally published October 24 2005
Bird flu contigency plans are currently lacking
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
LexisNexis provides an overview of the government's preparations, assessing and making its own recommendations about how the government should structure a large-scale response to a pandemic.
Local newspapers, international news magazines, and the internet have been replete with articles about the probable outbreak of an avian flu pandemic.
For this reason, the World Health Organization has sent out warnings to all nations and advised them to develop preparedness plans.
I asked a friend, a public health practitioner, who is now posted at the Kobe office of WHO, if the organization has pro-forma plans which communities can adopt to deal with the daunting situation.
Should families now stock up on anti-viral agents and medicines, and foodstuff like rice, canned goods, drinking water, and even face masks and rubber gloves?
The household help, who ordinarily take the brunt of the burden of helping in the care of the sick at home, like fetching drinking water, washing stained linen, and cleaning the dirtied floor, may not be of much help as they might also be down with the flu.
If a maid gets afflicted, she would have to be isolated so as not to infect others who, in most instances, sleep in the same cramped quarters.
If the subdivision draws water by pumping it out of its own deep wells, what happens when electric power is reduced or completely cut off due to the absence of operators at power stations?
If we go by the mortality rates, it is inevitable that there would be deaths among the afflicted cared for at home.
Some ideas are the conversion of the subdivision clubhouse into the nerve center of contingency activities, formation of security details with the young male residents of the village under the supervision of former military officers (in our subdivision, there must be 10 generals, among them heroes of EDSA 1), acquisition of an incinerator for burning garbage, and conversion of a school in the subdivision into a temporary infirmary to be supervised by physicians and other health professionals residing in the village, with able domestic helpers taking turns going on duty.
A year before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, a scenario of deluge, destruction, and death was drawn and presented to city officials and community leaders.
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