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January 13, 2003

U.S. IMMUNIZATION NEWS

"Volunteers Practice for Bioterror Incident"

Washington Post (www.washingtonpost.com) (01/12/03) P. C1; Connolly, Ceci

Officials in Arlington County, Va., staged on Saturday a mock mass smallpox vaccination clinic during which almost 400 volunteers streamed through a local high school cafeteria feigning the need for an emergency inoculation.  Workers at the mock clinic re-created what would really occur, beginning with an 11-minute informational video and discussing the take-home daily symptom diary.  Real clinics would have a goal of immunizing up to 1,000 people in one day.  The drill included police directing traffic; doctors who screened out "mock-patients" whose health conditions precluded them from getting the vaccine; and "non-English speaking patients" who required interpreters.  Oranges were used to simulate the time needed for each injection and the stamina nurses would require in order to administer hundreds of inoculations.  The Arlington drill was based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that at least 1.3 million volunteers working 16 hours a day for about seven days would be needed to immunize the entire U.S. population, or about 20 clinics for every 1 million residents.  Officials deliberately pushed the mock clinic to the limits to assess where bottlenecking may occur, but Bob Mauskapf--the state's planner for emergency preparedness and response--noted that any exercise such as this, "cannot introduce genuine panic."

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