Educating the public about bird flu

November 13, 2005

DAWN DE BUSK\Frontiersman reporter

MAT-SU - Creating a concrete public awareness campaign will give people an opportunity to sort out the facts about the avian flu and learn prevention techniques as well, according to Dennis Brodigan, Mat-Su Borough emergency services director.

But education remains only one component of being prepared for a potential pandemic or even an isolated outbreak of the bird flu, which has already spread to about 100 people in Asia, Brodigan said.

Monitoring the health of the bird and human populations is something that's been done by different agencies for decades or more, but now those agencies are on the lookout for a new strain of something old - a mutated virus that not only spreads from birds to humans, but from humans to humans.

Being on the alert is important, and so is having a clear-cut system for communication between agencies and areas of the state, he said.

Brodigan met Thursday morning with Kenai Peninsula Borough Emergency Manager David Gibbs and the Municipality of Anchorage's emergency manager, Heather Handyside, to establish a tri-borough network.

In the next few weeks, people will be designing a very specific public education campaign that should kick off in January, Brodigan said.

&#8220We ride that fine line between educating people and causing them to panic,” Brodigan said.

Some of the prevention methods that will be stressed are the importance of handwashing, covering the mouth when coughing and self-isolating when sick, Brodigan said.

If a person becomes infected with the avian flu and can be singled out because they came to town, stayed at one hotel and didn't go anywhere, then it will be easy to quarantine that person, Brodigan said.

Quarantines would be phased in if bird-to-human outbreaks are spread throughout the population, and agencies are unable to track the source, he said.

&#8220If we had to take extraordinary measures such as quarantining and isolating, that would have a huge socioeconomical impact. When Bush announced his plans for military interventions, we were scared,” Brodigan said.

Already, the emergency chiefs from all three boroughs have been working with the Alaska Division of Public Health on keeping the paths of communication open, he said.

Public Health studies trends in the human diseases and symptoms.

Emergency managers watch the bird population for a sudden spike in deaths and will also watch domestic poultry.

The swine flu, which surfaced in the late 1970s, was trumpeted to become a huge epidemic. &#8220Whether precaution averted it or not, there was no pandemic,” he said.

Officials continue to predict that sooner or later, the West Nile virus will make it to Alaska, he said.

&#8220We've been doing active surveillance for West Nile virus for a while now. The Mat-Su animal control officers who come across dead birds bag them and send them away for a necropsy,” Brodigan said.

&#8220The speculation by [federal Centers for Disease Control] experts is that the avian flu is going to happen the same way the West Nile virus spread. It's not like one bird flew from New York to California.

&#8220Migration is a misnomer. It's more like a relay racer passing a baton from one person to another,” Brodigan said.

The birds come in contact with one another at staging spots, he said.

&#8220Migration is going the other way now (away from Alaska).

&#8220It's giving us preparation time, which we are taking advantage of,” Brodigan said.

Contact Dawn De Busk at 352-2252 or dawn.debusk@

frontiersman.com.