By Bill Zeeble, KERA 90.1 reporter
Dallas, TX – Bill Zeeble, KERA 90.1 reporter: Dallas County's Senior Planner in the Health and Human Services Department, Dave Gruber, says this is the mission for local health workers if the county becomes a biological war zone.
Dave Gruber, Dallas County's Senior Planner in the Health and Human Services Department: Preparedness, prevention and response.
Zeeble: The county received $3.3 million in federal dollars last year to for prepare any number of bio-terror possibilities. Gruber says the money in part funded the assembly of a local bio-terror team, which rehearsed a CDC scenario - a countywide smallpox outbreak
Gruber: Immunization is the key to defense for the community. Now you have to look at large-scale immunization. We have to look at - theoretically - vaccinating 2.3 million people in Dallas County in 10 days.
Margaret Keliher, Dallas County Judge: We have actually got a plan in place for that.
Zeeble: Margaret Keliher is the Dallas County Judge who oversees the Commissioners Court.
Keliher: So I think we'd be prepared. Because the plans aren't finalized with everyone's approval, it would be premature to announce that - but a plan is in place.
Zeeble: It would have to include a mobile response team to identify the biological agents, then call on a coordinated regional response, says Dave Gruber, to contain and treat the infectious agent.
Gruber: Worst possible case. You get an infection and it gets out of control. Whaddya do? You take medication; you go see your doctor. With bio-terrorism, we'd have to incorporate the whole hospital system quarantine, and the national disaster medical system.
Zeeble: But Gruber and others, including Parkland Hospital's CEO Ron Anderson, admit a quarantine could be a problem.
Dr. Ron Anderson, CEO, Parkland Hospital: Trouble is, we're full. The three principal hospitals - including Children's - are pretty much full. If you had weapons of mass destruction, we'd have to empty the hospitals of all electives. We'd do that. That's what Israel does.
Zeeble: But Anderson says all the hospital's other patients would suddenly be at risk. Which is why the he says there would need to be a separate quarantine site.
Anderson: We are also talking with the county about facilities as they identify them, both on a local and regional basis. It's too expensive to buy a hospital and mothball it. We think we'd use it daily for something else that can be put someplace else immediately.
Zeeble: Another concern is having enough doctors. Anderson says trauma departments could get overwhelmed in a bio emergency. At the moment, some trauma department doctors are in short supply.
Anderson: People don't realize how desperate the trauma situation is day-to-day. Especially our state legislature doesn't get it. They're just hanging on right now. And as we prepare for this, you've got to prepare for Friday and Saturday nights, too. Every Friday and Saturday night, we kind of have a mini-terrorism going on, anyway.
Zeeble: No one offered a solution for those problems. But Judge Keliher says Dallas is better prepared for bio-terrorism than most Texas counties. Details of the Dallas bio-terror plan are still being finalized, and should be approved in a few weeks. For KERA 90.1, I'm Bill Zeeble.
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