Health India culls poultry to contain new bird flu outbreak Bird flu detected in Vietnam’s capital Emergency Services Bioterrorism training New computer program prepares better responses to disasters Security TSA to train bomb-sniffing dogs for airplane cargo Pentagon tests readiness for chemical attack Land and sea tests verify effectiveness of Boeing biological detection system Legal/Legislative National Disaster Response: FEMA should take action to improve capacity and   coordination between government and voluntary sectors House Security Committee passes chemical plant anti-terrorism bill Federal Ageny Events Public Health Preparedness: mobilizing state by state – A CDC report on the public   Health Emergency Preparedness Cooperative Agreement U.S. holds largest ever simulated cyber-attack exercise FEMA to take over mass care role formerly held by Red Cross Academic Studies / Conferences Pandemic flu plan would put Chicago on lockdown Cat carried woman’s antibiotic-resistant infection

Health

India culls poultry to contain new bird flu outbreak
http://in.reuters.com/article/health/idINSP14635220080310?sp=true

A month after authorities declared bird flu was under control in eastern India, veterinary workers began culling thousands of chickens to contain a fresh outbreak being reported from West Bengal’s Murshidabad district where 900 chickens and ducks died over the last two weeks.  In January, the H5N1 virus had hit 13 of the state’s 19 districts, including Murshidabad, bringing down poultry sales by more than 70 percent in the state, but it had a limited impact in rest of the country.  Authorities in West Bengal then culled more than 3.4 million birds in the state after the World Health Organization (WHO) described January’s outbreak as the worst-ever in India. Officials in eastern India say bird flu among poultry could spread to new areas.  The state’s animal resources minister said smuggled poultry from bird-flu hit Bangladesh could have triggered the latest outbreak.  There have been no reported human cases of the bird flu in India yet.

Bird flu detected in Vietnam’s capital
http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=31&art_id=nw20080307085326436C928637&set_id

Vietnamese officials said that bird flu has made a comeback in Vietnam’s capital after being held at bay for more than a year, and chided farmers for negligence in fighting the virus.  Bird flu struck a farm in the suburban Soc Son district of Hanoi, killing more than 2,000 unvaccinated ducks, chickens, and geese.  Test results showed they were infected with the dangerous H5N1 virus, the department of animal health reported on its Web site.  Authorities disinfected and slaughtered the remaining1,500 birds on the farm.

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Emergency Services

Bioterrorism training
http://www.kidk.com/news/local/16624166.html

Health experts in the South Valley are undergoing training at Idaho State University (ISU) to deal with the emotional trauma caused by a bioterrorist attack.  It is part of ISU’s Bioterrorism Awareness and Preparedness Project.  The speaker giving the presentation is in Maryland, and the Idaho groups, along with other groups in the state as well as people in Washington and Oregon, listen in. ISU’s Bioterrorism training will continue in the following weeks.  Health experts will be discussing how to prepare private practices to handle an emergency situation.

New computer program prepares better responses to disasters
http://capitalnews9.com/content/living/112072/new-computer-program-prepares-better....

A new computer modeling program can help government, law enforcement, and first responders figure out how to react to disasters and best help people affected by catastrophes. Planning with Large Agency-Networks against Catastrophes, or Plan-C for short is a program developed at New York University’s Center for Catastrophe Preparedness and Response. The program allows disaster relief agencies to simulate a catastrophic event like a hurricane or terrorist attack. But unlike other modeling software that runs similar simulations, this one also tries to predict how citizens will react, based on a whole slew of factors including their level of fear and how much they know about what is going on. NYU now plans to get input about the program from local, state, and federal officials, in order to better tailor it to their particular needs.

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Security

TSA to train bomb-sniffing dogs for airplane cargo
http://www.macon.com/198/story/294294.html

Two federal inspectors stationed at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport will begin training with bomb-sniffing dogs as part of a nationwide effort to increase cargo screening on passenger planes. The federal agency is spending $22.4 million during the next two years to train 170 new bomb-sniffing dogs - 85 of them handled by TSA inspectors and 85 by local police - and deploy them at U.S. airports.  The Transportation Security Administration program aims to meet a requirement set by Congress in July that all cargo on passenger aircraft be screened for explosives by 2010, said a spokesman for the federal agency.  In addition to passengers and their luggage, airlines routinely ship air cargo in airplanes.  The first TSA dog teams - a dozen dogs and handlers destined for major airports in Miami, Los Angeles, New York and Washington - were expected to graduate Friday from a 10-week training course at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, the official said.

Pentagon tests readiness for chemical attack
http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/washington/news.aspx?id=82415

A bright blue sky and a chilly, gentle breeze – perfect weather for simulating a chemical attack on a quiet neighborhood near the Pentagon. Defense Department staff and Arlington County, Virginia, workers hit the streets of Crystal City in yellow vests this week to see how toxins would move through an urban environment in a chemical attack or accident. They released a series of safe, clear, odorless gases and picked up data from sensors placed around buildings, in ventilation systems and on rooftops. Atmospheric scientists and defense officials say chemical dispersion tests are invaluable for planning emergency response strategies, but a price tag of hundreds of thousands of dollars per test means they are reserved for locations where the government has a high national security interest. As for northern Virginia, it would be hard to find a part of the U.S. near more potential targets with symbolic and security value. There is the Pentagon, the White House, Capitol Hill, the National War College, Reagan National Airport, a subway and highway system crammed with the nation’s leaders, and a slew of monuments and military bases. The Pentagon is paying the bills and providing some of the manpower for Arlington’s study. The Defense Department also plans to give Arlington County more chemical detectors and a control system that would connect the sensors to a computer constantly running atmospheric models. A similar system focusing on the Pentagon already exists, said a Pentagon Force Protection Agency official.

Land and sea tests verify effectiveness of Boeing biological detection system
http://pressmediawire.com/article.cfm?articleID=18250

The U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency and Boeing have demonstrated successfully that ScanEagle unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) modified to look for biological warfare agents can effectively intercept, detect, and fly through simulated biological plumes or clouds to collect airborne agents. Tests also show that the UAVs can successfully collect airborne material and data from a target site that can help U.S. forces combat the threat from biological agents and minimize the danger to friendly forces and civilians. “We now know that we can use UAVs to find and intercept biological plumes using computerized prediction models, along with location and tracking software and other UAV-based sensors. We’ve also demonstrated that the BCAS (Biological Combat Assessment System) UAVs can operate at beyond-line-of-sight ranges far in excess of our program requirements,” said the Boeing program manager for the BCAS Advanced Technology Demonstration program. He said these capabilities would enable U.S. forces to accurately perform at safe distances battle damage assessment of plume releases that result from counterforce strikes against facilities dedicated to the research, production, and/or storage of biological warfare agents.

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Legal / Legislative

National Disaster Response: FEMA should take action to improve capacity and coordination between government and voluntary sectors
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08369.pdf

The Government Accountability Office released this report, which uses lessons from the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes to examine the role of the federal government in disaster. The report found that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), rather than the Red Cross, should be the primary agency to oversee mass care during disasters because of its resources and its contact with other federal agencies. The report also concludes that FEMA should take a more active role in supporting NVOAD and coordinating between the government and voluntary organizations to improve communication and information sharing during response efforts.

House Security Committee passes chemical plant anti-terrorism bill
http://www.commondreams.org/news2008/0306-15.htm

In a bipartisan vote, the House Homeland Security Committee passed Thursday the “Chemical Facilities Anti-Terrorism Act of 2008.” The bill would significantly strengthen the Department of Homeland Security’s regulations and create a permanent law to address the risks posed by chemical facilities. In response to the bill’s passage, the Legislative Director for Greenpeace USA’s toxics campaign issued the following statement: “If enacted, this new law could save thousands of lives. By using safer chemicals to replace obsolete poison gases, a U.S. chemical plant no longer could be turned into a weapon of mass destruction. Under the existing interim law, the most ironclad security measures and safer technologies are actually barred from becoming a security requirement.” The bill will go next to the Energy and Commerce Committee.

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Federal Agency Events

Public Health Preparedness: mobilizing State by State – A CDC report on the public health emergency preparedness cooperative agreement
http://emergency.cdc.gov/publications/feb08phprep/

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Coordinating Office for Terrorism Preparedness and Emergency Response (COTPER) has released its inaugural report on public health emergency preparedness. The 164-page report highlights the progress that has been made in state and local preparedness and response, identifies preparedness challenges facing public health departments, and outlines the CDC’s efforts to address those challenges.

U.S. holds largest ever simulated cyber-attack exercise
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080313/tc_afp/uscomputerinternetsecurity_080313232801;_ylt=Aq2....

U.S. officials said that “real and growing” threats to US computer and telecommunications networks were behind the holding of Cyber Storm II, the largest-ever cyber-security exercises, this week. Computer security experts from five countries, more than 40 private sector companies, and numerous government and state agencies are spending a week fielding simulated “real-world,” on-line attacks on the computer systems of government bodies, corporations, transportation, and other key industries. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Under Secretary for the National Protection and Programs Directorate said the Cyber Storm II exercise sought to foster personal links between key officials in business and government. Those people, he said, are not always willing to share information about security issues involving the networks they run. Cyber Storm II tested the warning systems in place for attacks and sought to identify gaps in the way information was shared and reactions coordinated across various sectors. DHS officials declined to say what kinds of threats they found were most dangerous or what specific weaknesses were identified, citing security needs, but said a report on the exercise would be released later this year.

FEMA to take over mass care role formerly held by Red Cross
http://govexec.com/dailyfed/0308/030708kp1.htm

Emergency management professionals learned many lessons from the chaotic response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, among them the need for a more coherent approach to providing mass care. The storm destroyed or rendered uninhabitable more than 300,000 homes, sending nearly a million people in search of shelter. As a result of that unprecedented experience, the American Red Cross and the Federal Emergency Management Agency agreed last year that FEMA should have responsibility for coordinating mass care, and not the Red Cross, as had been the case. That is because FEMA could direct federal resources to meet mass care needs, while the private Red Cross could not – a factor that added to the confusion in the aftermath of Katrina. That agreement was codified earlier this year in the National Response Framework, the emergency response blueprint FEMA published in January with input from other federal agencies and state, local and private entities involved in disaster management. A recent report by the Government Accountability Office raises concerns about the new arrangement, however. While GAO supports FEMA’s role as the primary agency for providing mass care, it questions whether it has the staff and resources to do so adequately. Additionally, neither FEMA nor the Red Cross nor other volunteer organizations are sufficiently prepared to support the elderly or people with disabilities during a disaster, auditors found. While the role of the Red Cross will remain largely the same as in the past, it no longer will be responsible for reporting data on all shelters, something it had been required to do. Now, the Red Cross will report only on its own shelters and states will be responsible for reporting on all other shelters. FEMA will be responsible for compiling the data on all shelters into a centralized database, still under development.

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Academic Studies / Conferences

Pandemic flu plan would put Chicago on lockdown
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080310/us_nm/birdflu_containment_dc;_ylt=AvPPUFJeEHnkppl5x0ZDh....

A Containing an influenza pandemic in a large U.S. city like Chicago would require widespread school closings, quarantines of infected households, and bans on public gatherings, U.S. researchers said on Monday. However, if done quickly and well, such steps could reduce infections by as much as 80 percent, said a researcher at Virginia Tech. He led one of three teams of scientists who ran computer simulations to see if drug and social containment efforts could slow the spread of an influenza pandemic in a major U.S. city such as Chicago, which has a population of about 8.6 million people. All three teams found that a combination of antiviral drugs and social distancing efforts would be needed to slow the spread of a pandemic flu, they report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Flu is always circulating, but every few decades a completely new strain emerges and makes millions sicker than usual. Government estimates suggest vaccines and drugs will not be enough to slow or prevent a flu pandemic, and the U.S. pandemic plan includes ways to limit the spread by closing schools and implementing strategies to reduce contact with infected people.

The study is available at http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0706849105

Cat carried woman’s antibiotic-resistant infection
http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSCOL35887820080313

Pets can harbor virulent antibiotic-resistant infections and spread them to humans, German researchers reported.  The warning is based on the case of a woman who had deep abscesses caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).  Her husband and two children showed evidence of infection, too, but it disappeared with treatment even as the woman’s abscesses festered.  When a doctor from the Bavarian Food and Health Safety Authority and colleagues examined the woman’s three apparently healthy cats, one turned out to have the same strain. Only after the cat was treated with antibiotics did the woman’s abscesses clear up.

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