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Charleston/Huntington, WV |
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Health care workers train for smallpox vaccines
By: WSAZ Charleston
CHARLESTON, WV, Jan. 28 - Health care
workers in West Virginia are preparing for the threat of a smallpox
attack. Nurses and doctors are training on how to give the vaccine.
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It's a lesson nurses and
doctors haven't studied for more than thirty years. But with the
roll of the sleeve and the snap of a rubber glove, they're ready to
learn.
Health care workers have to use a special needle called a
bifrucated needle. It's forked or split so it can prick the top
layer of the skin, and get enough of the vaccine inside each person.
"It was a little bit of fear, just the unknown of what it was
going to feel like and how bad it's going to be and also it's a
little bit of fear thinking this might actually happen in the United
States of America," says Cathy Hill of Boone Memorial Hospital.
Experts say one in one thousand patients will suffer serious
side effects. One in one million can die from the vaccine.
"It's scary but I feel like if somebody doesn't do this, if
somebody doesn't go out and protect the people of our country, who's
going to do it? We send boys overseas to protect us, we need to
stay and protect the people here," says Dorothy Hrko of the Wyoming
County Health Department.
"We're having to move forward without crystal balls, that's
very difficult, there's no black and white with this. Bad things
could happen, and we will not know whether it was worth it until we
are able to look back in retrospect," says West Virginia Health
Officer Dr. Cathy Slemp.
But health care workers agree it's better to be proactive in
preparing for the worst, than reactive if the worst would happen.
Health care workers across the state will be the first to
receive the vaccination sometime next month. President Bush says for
now no one is recommending the vaccination for the general public.
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