PSU must be prepared for flu, consultant says
As Portland State’s environmental health and safety consultant, Chuck Cooper knows that a pandemic flu outbreak, such as the avian flu, could cripple the everyday functions of the university.
“At some point, a pandemic is going to hit us, whether it is avian flu or something else. We can’t be too prepared,” Cooper said.
Cooper has been working on establishing lines of communication between Oregon universities and national, state and local authorities. In June he will meet with environmental health and safety officers from Oregon’s other publicly funded universities to formalize a common plan for action.
The U.S. government released a strategy plan earlier this month, and state and county governments have adjusted their plans to fit within the federal plan.
“This summer we will walk through the details of our plan with the local officials so by fall we’ll have it nailed down,” Cooper said.
Actually doing anything concrete now other than getting prepared might end up being counterproductive, Cooper said. Producing a flu vaccine in a regular year takes up to nine months, and it is possible that the illness could run its course through the population before a vaccine could be found.
“It will really depend upon what the virus looks like. Right now we don’t know if a vaccine will be able to be produced,” said Mark Bajorek, chief medical officer at PSU’s Center for Student Health and Counseling.
If a vaccine could be produced, the PSU campus may be used as a staging facility to process thousands of people rapidly.
An exercise to practice such a scenario occurred in the fall, demonstrating how many people could be effectively treated for a highly communicable disease within a short period of time. PSU worked with Multnomah County to execute this.
“That exercise was valuable, but it assumed we have an effective treatment,” Cooper said. Not as important as forming an emergency plan, he said, is getting people to participate in the planning process.
Katrina Hedberg, manager of communicable disease preparedness for the Oregon Department of Human Services, said, “The most important thing here is for people to continue to keep this on their radar screen.”
She agrees with Cooper that building relationship ties across communities can be a key to preventing a disaster. “We don’t want to be meeting people for the first time at the scene of a disaster. Part of the plan is to know those players and to make those connections early. I feel confident that that is underway.”
PSU President Daniel Bernstine ultimately has the authority to close the school, said Lindsay Desrochers, vice president for Finance and Administration. “As the vice president, I would do an assessment and advise him as to the situation, but of course we would be working closely with the state officials and if there was a determination by them that the case was severe, then we would have to work in concert with them to make that decision.”
Cooper is hoping that by fall a statement will be made to the PSU community about what can be expected in such a situation.
“People need to know what to expect. My primary concern is saving lives, and that’s a recommendation I’ll make sooner rather than later. I’m not willing to make a last-minute decision,” Cooper said.
