History of why Mass Dispensing Clinic Exercises are important

Recent intentional and natural disease outbreaks in the United States, such as the 2001 anthrax attacks, the 2003 influenza season, and the concern about pandemic influenza,
have focused increased attention on the ability of state and local public health authorities to provide affected individuals and communities with rapid, reliable access to prophylactic medications – medications that prevent or stop the spread of disease. The U.S. Federal government has called on all states to devise comprehensive mass dispensing plans to ensure that civilian populations have timely access to necessary antibiotics and/or vaccines in the event of future outbreaks.

What Delta Junction is doing:
The State of Alaska, Department of Health and Social Services along with Delta Junction Public Health Center and the Delta Greely Local Emergency Planning Committee are working together to test our community’s capability of responding to a public health emergency such as SARS or Pandemic Flu. This fall Delta Junction will put planning into practice with a “mass dispensing clinic” exercise on October 25th.

The “mass dispensing clinic” exercise is designed to practice giving a large number of people an immunization or medication in a very short time. In a real public health emergency it would be important to be able to respond quickly to prevent a possible major outbreak. At the Delta Junction “mass dispensing clinic” exercise, we will be distributing free flu vaccine for all ages while supplies last.

Public Health emergencies, although rare, may cause large-scale illness, which can overwhelm the normal, everyday functions of local resources, especially in a small community. Being prepared through planning and practicing is a community wide task.

We need everyone’s help to make this preparedness exercise a true test of our community emergency plan. From administration, registration and forms, to clinic support, screening, communication, safety and facility operations there are many jobs to fill. Each volunteer will be asked to attend a training session and work a 2 to 4 hour shift.

Delta Public Health is also trying to identify our communities “vulnerable” population. If you have a special health need that would put you at more risk in an emergency we would like to have you call the Public Health Center and register.

If you think you would be interested in helping with this “mass dispensing” exercise or would like more information, please call the Delta Public Health Center at 895-4292.

*****Very important message we want to get out to our community: We want everyone in the community to participate in this as an emergency preparedness exercise. We want people to attend to “walk through” the mass dispensing clinic between the hours of 2pm and 8pm – even if they don’t want a flu shot. They would just “pretend” that they were there because of an emergency situation and this will help us know if we are capable of handling a large group of people in a short amount of time.