Not so long ago, our government did maintain rapidly deployable pharmaceutical stockpiles, including antibiotics. However, there has been much political tinkering, blundering and loss of readiness of late, in federal programs designed for disaster response and mitigation, including disease outbreaks or bio-terrorism. Several years ago, the system was in pretty good shape, and I participated in an exercise ("Bioshield") to practice receiving one of the stockpiles and distributing them to hospitals, county health clinics, etc. It went very well. Today? Who knows?
In the past few years, we in the ham radio community have been working with the Medical Reserve Corps. In the event of a pandemic requiring mass antibiotic release, the MRC is preparing to open lots of "PODs" (Points of Dispensing) for the fast release of antibiotics. The initial release would come from the "SNS" or Strategic National Stockpile, which is composed of air freight containers that can be delivered anywhere in the country no longer than 12 hrs after activation. Follow on drug releases would come from slower national and state stockpiles. The PODs are in public areas other than hospitals & clinics, to take the load off those facilities.
That's not to say that all points in the US could be reached that quickly, but here in the N. Texas area, we've been drilling for it.
Previous Topic
Index
