Byline: Teresa Mask Daily Herald Staff Writer
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CORRECTION/date 10-13-2001: To correct some editions of last Sunday's Daily Herald, the year of the last known case of smallpox is 1977. In 1980, the disease was declared eradicated.
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As the nation prepares to do battle with terrorists, Chicago and its suburbs loom as a target for one of the enemy's most likely weapons - germs.
It's home to the world's busiest airport. It's one of the nation's most populated regions. And, at any given time, thousands of people make a tempting target as they gather for concerts, sporting events and conventions.
The question, then, naturally follows: Are we prepared here? The short answer, according to local experts, is, 'Yes, but...'
'While we are ready to deal with something tomorrow, more needs to be done and is being done,' says Dr. David Hassard, attending physician in the emergency room at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge. 'Our meetings are becoming more frequent and our efforts more intense.'
For instance, Hassard said doctors are being retrained to detect and treat biological and chemical diseases - many of them have never seen the smallpox rash because the last United States case was in 1980.
The medical community, in particular, is preparing for this stage of a potential war because it knows it may be the first to detect an attack. Germ warfare, for the most part, is invisible because it is spread through the air. People won't even know they've been hit until they start having symptoms - often days or weeks later.
The medical community is honing in on six diseases because of their potential for use by terrorists: smallpox, anthrax, plague, botulism toxin, tularemia and hemorrhagic fevers.
To be prepared for an attack, area hospitals also are holding symposiums on bioterrorism and are surprising staff with disaster drills.
They also are:
- Formulating coordinated disaster plans with neighboring hospitals who often are their competitors.
- Establishing a plan-of-action with the county, regional and state health officials.
- Talking to schools and municipalities about possible use of their facilities in a crisis.
- Using an electronic intranet so that the medical community can share information.
Most hospitals are equipped with a decontamination room and a stockpile of antibiotics to treat hundreds of patients during the first wave of a bioterror attack. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta has enough antibiotics to treat 2 million people for about 60 days, which the federal government promises can be shipped anywhere within 12 hours.
Once a biological disease is detected, disseminating that information to other medical facilities and the public centers around a phone tree.
It is the same protocol used for other disasters such as tornadoes or plane crashes, said Tom Mefferd, coordinator of DuPage County's Office of Emergency Management.
Hospitals first notify the county health department. County officials will call the Illinois Department of Public Health. In a situation of bioterrorism, the state will get more antibiotics, antitoxins and IV fluid if the hospital's reserve stash won't suffice. They will begin a series of interviews with patients to try to determine where the disease originated. The state also will alert a core group of hospitals designated to start checking bed capacity and staff availability at neighboring medical centers.
In the Chicago region, Elgin's Sherman Hospital, Advocate Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Chicago's Illinois Masonic and Highland Park Hospitals have that role.
'That planning and work and training has been going on for two years,' said Tom Schafer, a spokesman for the Illinois Department of Public Health. 'The risk of bioterrorism isn't something that just happened on Sept. 11.'
But what still needs to be finalized are coordinated efforts to handle potentially thousands of patients. That may include using school gymnasiums, health clubs and municipal buildings to house patients or their friends and family who would be in the way in hospital emergency rooms.
'When you start talking a couple thousand, then hospitals have procedures to start shipping those patients out,' said Don Bryant, director of Kane County's Emergency Management Service.
The key, he said, will be finding hospitals that aren't affected.
'It becomes not an issue of how many people can they jam in the hall, but how many they can monitor,' Schafer said.
He said it would be the state's role to determine where to send patients when hospitals are at a point where they have too many patients to monitor. The state also would dispatch ambulances to pick up patients too sick to come to the hospital.
Amid all the preparations, officials also are keeping the likelihood of an outbreak in perspective.
'While the risk of terrorism is, of course, rising, the chances of biological terrorism in Park Ridge or the northern suburbs is very low,' Hassard said. 'Personally, this is not something I'm losing sleep over.'
Others are more hesitant to dismiss the possibility.
'We're being told that it's difficult for terrorists or others to manufacture these agents or to distribute this in an economic way that would reach a lot of people,' said the state's Schafer. 'But before Sept. 11, I doubt anybody would have said that someone could take jets filled with fuel and crash them into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.'
