Health Agency Says It's Ready To Respond to Bioterrorism
By Deborah Baker The Associated Press
SANTA FE — New Mexico is no stranger to public health mysteries, and the detectives who solve them say that's good preparation for dealing with possible bioterrorism.
Even as officials seek to reassure residents that biological agents are unlikely to be released here, they say they're ready.
"We have planned for years our response to a public health emergency, and we feel confident that our surveillance and response systems are sound," Health Secretary Alex Valdez said Thursday.
After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, Valdez's agency alerted health care providers around the state to be on the lookout for possible symptoms of biological agents in patients.
None has been reported.
For a couple of years, New Mexico has been getting grants — this year for $1.7 million — for bioterrorism preparedness.
"This is dual-use monies, for shoring up basic infrastructure to respond to any number of public health events," said state epidemiologist C. Mack Sewell. "You never know what might be around the corner."
The Department of Health has an emergency preparedness unit, an extensive network of contacts with hospitals, doctors and health workers, and someone available 24 hours a day from the Office of Epidemiology. Its Scientific Laboratory Division can test for three of the diseases that could result from biological warfare — anthrax, plague and tularemia.
Anthrax produces a toxin that can cause fatal damage to the respiratory system and brain; plague is a bacterial disease that killed millions during the Middle Ages but is treatable with antibiotics; tularemia is a rare bacterial illness, also known as rabbit fever.
New technologies allow quicker identification — within three or four hours, in some cases — for those organisms, said Dr. Debra Horensky, chief of biological sciences at the laboratory in Albuquerque.
New Mexico is one of 24 states that has a specially trained bioterrorism expert assigned from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, and one of 32 states with a public health veterinarian — a specialist in diseases of animals that can be transmitted to humans.
The federal grant is also being used to pay part of the cost of a pilot program aimed at alerting public health experts to unusual cases, or clusters of cases, as soon as doctors become aware of them, said Jennifer Downey, coordinator of the emergency preparedness unit.
The program is operating now only at the University of New Mexico Hospital and at sites connected with Memorial Medical Center in Las Cruces, she said.
Downey said the emergency preparedness unit has been providing information about anthrax to doctors and other health workers, as well as fielding calls from people who wonder how they can get hold of Cipro, the antibiotic used to treat anthrax.
"We're discouraging that greatly," Downey said.
The antibiotic — available only by prescription — is expensive and shouldn't be taken needlessly, she said. It can cause side effects if it's used, and become too old if it's stored. The drug's availability also could be reduced.
"If there is an outbreak somewhere, they need that (drug)," she said.
A dozen years ago, New Mexico was the first to report an outbreak of a rare and painful blood disorder called eosinophilia myalgia syndrome that was linked to a dietary supplement.
A few years later, hantavirus made headlines when young, otherwise healthy people began dying mysteriously in the Four Corners area where New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado meet.
State health workers routinely monitor a host of diseases, including plague, rabies and influenza. They've investigated occasional anthrax in cows. Six years ago, they gave 7,000 doses of vaccine to residents of rural communities northwest of Albuquerque after a couple of meningitis deaths.
Recently, they've been keeping an eye on outbreaks of pertussis, or whooping cough, in several communities.
"This is part of our regular job," Sewell said.
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