Officials tout pandemic preparedness
A group has been formed
to recruit professionals who can be called upon in an emergency.
By WILLIAM K. ALCORN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
AUSTINTOWN — Mahoning County has a step up on most other Ohio metropolitan areas in preparing for pandemic flu or other disease affecting the entire community, said county health department officials.
Mahoning County District Board of Health officials said Thursday that its drive-through flu shot service Friday at the Canfield Fairgrounds was enormously successful.
Some 857 doses of the vaccine were dispensed between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. at the event, billed as a handy way for residents to get the vaccine and a good practice for public health officials in pandemic preparedness.
“I don’t think anybody expected the turnout we received,” said Diana Colaianni, who is head of the health department’s nursing division and in overall charge of the drive-through service.
Despite the unanticipated surge of people, which resulted in a backup of traffic on state Route 46, it proved the concept, said Dr. John S. VenglarcikIII, the health department’s medical director.
It showed that a large number of doses of the vaccine can be administered in an area without bringing large numbers of people together and mingling the infected with the healthy, a concept called “social distancing,” Dr. Venglarcik said. He said Friday’s event was the first for a large metropolitan area in the state.
It also demonstrated how labor intensive and difficult it is to administer large numbers of doses of vaccine.
It took 90 people from both the Mahoning County and Trumbull County health departments working very, very hard, said Dr. Venglarcik, professor of pediatrics, master teacher and associate dean for clinical education at Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine.
Extrapolating that labor requirement out, Dr. Venglarcik said if it became necessary to vaccinate all 500,000 to 600,000 people in Trumbull and Mahoning counties, at the rate of 35,000 a day, it would require 1,800 people per day working two 16-hour shifts per day for two weeks to get the job done.
Recognizing the need for medical professionals in the event of a pandemic, the Mahoning health board has formed a Medical Reserve Corps, which had its first training session Wednesday.
The purpose of the corps is to recruit, enroll and train medical professionals, such as physicians, nurses, dentists, veterinarians, pharmacists and others, who can be called upon in an emergency, said Joseph Diorio, the health board’s director of lead poisoning prevention.
Diorio said 70 medical professionals attended the reserve corps’ first meeting, and more sessions will be scheduled in the future.
Linda Ewing, deputy director of nursing for clinical services at the health department, was among those attending the initial meeting.
“The reasons I got involved is because I want to help my community and I want to use my skills to help people,” she said.
“The reserve corps would be critical to handling a pandemic,” Dr. Venglarcik said.
Pandemic means an epidemic, or sudden outbreak, of a disease or illness, such as the flu, that becomes widespread and affects a whole region, a continent or the world.
Another action being taken by the county health department to try and identify any unusual outbreak of flu is to monitor flu-like symptoms via information from physicians, schools, nursing homes and what people are buying over the counter at pharmacies, Ewing said.
“Also, we are practicing working with other public health departments,” such as the flu shot drive-through last week, in which Trumbull personnel participated; and flu shot events in Trumbull County next week at which Mahoning personnel will help, Ewing said.
All of these actions are “baby steps” in anticipation of a pandemic disease. “We’re just trying to prepare. We’re ahead of the ball game,” Dr. Venglarcik said.
alcorn@vindy.com