“The Original Terror Alert Safe Room System” compliments the use of duct tape and plastic to ensure the proper flow of oxygen to the sealed room!
The key elements of the "Original Terror Alert Safe Room System" are the 'Terror Alert Safe Room Gas Barrier Sheeting' and the non-toxic 'Bag of Absorbing Powder'.When properly used, the 'Terror Alert Safe Room Gas Barrier Sheeting' helps provide protection against chemical and biological attacks by not allowing gas to pass through the sheeting while the non-toxic absorbing powder permits air circulation into the room.
GLOVES-HOMELAND SECURITY/ GSA
The Pentagon, anticipating difficulties acquiring supplies from the Far East, is considering stockpiling millions of latex gloves. And the Department of Veterans Affairs has developed a drive-through medical exam to quickly assess patients who suspect they have been infected.
A national pandemic influenza response plan that includes a proposal to allow foreign countries to print US money as an emergency response measure in the event of a major flu pandemic. President George W. Bush is expected to approve the plan with a week, The Washington Post reported on April 15.
The response plan, assembled by the president's Homeland Security Council, details how the government would respond to a bird flu outbreak that could claim 1.9 million American lives over an 18-month period, as the plan envisions. The plan lays out 300 specific tasks for federal agencies including the proposal to expand the Internet so as to allow scores of people to work out of their home computers.
LATEX GLOVES
The Treasury Department is on the verge of signing agreements with other countries to print US currency if the domestic mints cannot operate. Similarly, the Department of Veterans Affairs has come up with a drive-through medical exam to rapidly assess patients who think that they have been exposed to the infectious agents.
President Bush was briefed on the national response plan on March 17 and is expected to approve it within a week. The 240-page plan details the way in which the White House proposed early this year to manage the medical, security and economic fallout of a major disease outbreak.
CLEANING GLOVES
After the plan is approved and issued, officials are to announce several vaccine manufacturing contracts to get the industry on its way to full functioning. The vaccine manufacturing industry has been pretty lax in recent times and major orders could kick start it, officials say.
INDUSTRIAL LATEX GLOVES
The quick response plan centers on the procurement and distribution of vaccines and anti-viral drugs. The Strategic National Stockpile has 5.1 million courses of T amiflu as against a requirement of 21 million doses. It is also proposed to stockpile around 4 million courses of R elenza by the end of 2006 and 51 million doses by 2008.
INDUSTRIAL WORKING GLOVES
The plan also talks of steps to determine who would need to get vaccinated first in the event of a major outbreak. But this is a thorny issue that is still subject to public debate. The current analysis, which appears in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, says that it might be a better strategy to give the medicine to every person with symptoms and others in the same house instead to disbursing it to first responders and health-care workers as is currently planned.
Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota said that the government was making progress, but was nowhere near the requisite preparedness to deal with a bird flu outbreak. "Most of the federal government right now is as ill-prepared as any part of society," he stressed.
DMV LATEX EXAMINATION GLOVES
Talking about a major emergency response, former assistant Surgeon General Susan Blumenthal said that as Hurricane Katrina demonstrated, the biggest challenge would be the co-ordination between state and federal agencies. The Department of Health and Human Services would be in charge of the medical services, while Homeland Security would have overall control over the situation, but she queried, "How are those authorities going to come together?"
STERIL LATEX EXAMINATION GLOVES
A White House official responded by saying that a high-level Disaster Response Group would resolve any disputes that arose, but such a group has not yet been created. Ms Blumenthal was also concerned about the scanty progress made even two years after the Congress approved a $5.6 billion B ioShield program to work on new dr ugs and v accines.
Analysts at the Government Accountability Office say that earlier efforts to manage disasters ended in failure since those plans gathered dust on shelves. "Our biggest concern is whether an agency has a clear idea of what it absolutely has to do, no matter what," confirmed Linda Koontz, director of information management issues at the GAO.
She added that most agencies were not aware or had not trained for emergency plans, raising worries that when the disaster happens "people will be sitting there with a 500-page book in front of them." Bruce Gellin, director of the National Vaccine Program Office at HHS said that most agencies should be prepared to work without 40 percent of the staff when the outbreak happened.
"The problem is, you never know which 40 percent will be out," he said, adding that some will be dead, while others depressed or caring for their loved ones.
According to the federal government, 36,000 Americans die from seasonal infl uenza every year. A worldwide outbreak is inevitable when a new hitherto unknown strain of v irus starts spreading. The H5N1 avian flu v irus is one such new and dangerous strain. According to the WH O the v irus has so far claimed 109 lives mostly in Asia.
But experts fear that it could mutate to a form that is easily transmissible to humans. In such an event, they say that a global pandemic would claim millions of lives. So far this has not happened, but the threat remains.
HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt said in a speech April 10 that any community which fails to prepare "with the expectation that the federal government can come to the rescue -- will be tragically wrong." The government has taken the first steps towards this preparation, but the question is, will these steps be enough?
