Coweta County commissioners Dec. 11 signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with Georgia Division of Public Health (DPH) District 4 to address aspects of the county’s participation to facilitate the planning, plan evaluation and future exercises relating to pandemic influenza. While not present in the United States, the H5N1 strain of influenza, commonly referred to as avian flu, has been slowly spreading among humans in Asia and Africa and has become one of the world’s most virulent killers.

The agreement with DPH Dist. 4 will provide Coweta with $10,000 in federal funds from the Emergency Preparedness Pandemic Influenza Planning Program and will provide an up-to-date response plan that will reflect the Public Health Priority Outcomes of prevention, health, promotion and protection, according to Dist. 4 Emergency Preparedness Director Charles Reneau in a letter to the board. DPH will also support local community partners by providing written and technical assistance as requested, Reneau said. The grant requires that the funds be used only for developing and furthering the development of pandemic flu All-Hazards plans and assessing the efficacy of those plans, said Reneau.

Cities and counties throughout the United States and their counterparts around the world have been conducting table-top drills and mock exercises for nearly three years. The need for such exercises began to emerge in 2003 and 2004, when two factors became evident. As with many flu strains, H5N1 jumped the species barrier from birds to human but, thankfully, has had only minimal success in being transmitted from human to human. That initial jump, combined with the extremely high death rate of those infected, is what has caused alarm. What had been a critically high death rate of 55 percent in 2003-2004 has now advanced to more than 63 percent in 2008.

In the DPH agreement, Coweta will establish an All-Hazards Emergency Coordinating Committee representing all stakeholders, support the development of community-based plans and exercises, and appoint an elected official to the All-Hazards Planning Board. The county also agrees to schedule an exercise within 6 months and to support an on-going program of planning and evaluation for a community-based response.

Rare cases of human-to-human transmission have been documented, such as the case of several family members in Sumatra dying after only one family member came in contact with an infected chicken. Epidemiologists are concerned that if the strain mutates from human to human sufficiently it could set off a pandemic. Today’s frequent global travel and the incubation period noted with H5N1 greatly enhances that probability.

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