Drill will test city for flu emergency

Seacoast Online | October 28, 2005
By Joe Adler

PORTSMOUTH - The city will be one of three regional sites next month holding an "emergency vaccination exercise" to test preparedness in the case of a disease outbreak.

The drill is part of a plan developed in 2001 by emergency officials and Portsmouth Regional Hospital in the wake of the anthrax scare. During the exercise, 2,000 residents of Portsmouth and four other towns can get actual flu vaccinations to test the region’s readiness for a real event.

"This plan has been in the works ever since we started looking into bioterrorism back in 2001," said emergency physician Dr. David Heller, who will participate in a 9:30 a.m. news conference Monday at City Hall to discuss the drill.

The exercise will be held at Portsmouth High School on Nov. 19 starting at 8 a.m. Residents of Portsmouth, Greenland, New Castle, Newington and Rye can go directly to the school to receive a free shot.

Recently, health officials have expressed concern over the threat of a pandemic from a deadly form of the flu virus, known as avian flu.

So far, it has killed humans in Asia - and birds in Asia and Europe - but has not been found to spread from human to human.

The flu vaccinations made available at the Portsmouth drill will be for common flu.

Heller said the planned exercise - which the state has asked Portsmouth, Manchester and Colebrook to carry out - should not alarm residents about the threat of a pandemic.

He said the need for disaster preparedness has been magnified in part by the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast, where unsanitary conditions have led to fears of sicknesses such as cholera, typhoid and tetanus.

"In New Orleans, there was a need to immunize people against tetanus," Heller said.

The high school was chosen for the exercise to reflect the type of site where emergency personnel would set up in the case of an actual emergency.

"Rather than overrun the hospital, we’ll choose an off-site location, which in this case is the high school," said Portsmouth Fire Chief Christopher LeClaire, the city’s emergency management coordinator.

The news conference will include LeClaire, Heller, City Manager John Bohenko and Dr. Jon Albertson, chief of staff at Portsmouth Regional Hospital. At 6:30 p.m. on Monday, the state Department of Health and Human Services will hold a public forum on the avian flu at City Hall.

Material from the Associated Press was used in this article.

Last modified October 28, 2005