2 dozen attend Skowhegan avian flu summit

SKOWHEGAN – Matthew Chandler, the pandemic flu coordinator for the Maine Center for Disease Control, rocked those gathered Tuesday at an avian flu planning summit by presenting statistics to which they could relate.

Even as Chandler praised Somerset County representatives for their aggressive attitude, concern centered more on who wasn’t in attendance rather than who was.

If an avian flu pandemic strikes Maine, he said, one-third of each community can be expected to be infected.

“Of that third, 10 percent will die,” Chandler said.

In Skowhegan, that could mean 294 deaths. In Pittsfield, it means 150. In tiny Detroit, with only 850 people, 24 people could die.

To show how quickly the resources of the county’s hospitals will be outstripped, Chandler asked: “How many ventilators do you have at Redington Fairview Hospital” in Skowhegan?

The answer was three adult and no infant ventilators – nowhere near what could be needed.

“We really need to take a look at the local response,” Chandler said. “If we are the first state to contract the flu, we would likely get great federal support. But if we are the 40th, not much will be forthcoming.”

The two dozen people met Tuesday at Skowhegan, the first county meeting attended by MCDC, and started the process of creating a road map that will guide emergency efforts in the event of a pandemic flu in Somerset County.

Avian flu is a disease spread through domestic and wild fowl and, in a few cases, from birds to humans. Although there are at least 15 varieties of avian flu, it is the H5N1 subtype that is of most concern because scientists fear the virus will mutate to spread from human to human, which could cause a person-to-person global outbreak, or a pandemic. Currently, there is no pandemic flu in the world, although H5N1 is spreading actively throughout the fowl populations of Asia, Europe and Great Britain.

The federal government has mandated that every county in the country devise an emergency pandemic plan.

Only about two dozen people attended the summit, despite an invitation from Bob Higgins, Somerset County Emergency Management Agency director, to hundreds of county leaders. Higgins had invited municipal leaders, fire and police department representatives, health, hospice and nursing home industry people, mortuary and funeral service representatives, and a bevy of others to the formal planning session.

“This is the complacency I have run into,” Higgins said.

Not a single elected municipal leader attended. No one represented Sebasticook Valley Hospital. No one attended from the county’s largest businesses, such as Edwards Systems Technology in Pittsfield or Madison Paper Co. No public works, utilities, Red Cross, transportation or food industries were represented. There were no clergy present nor anyone from a single funeral service in the county.

Higgins said that it is predicted that if an avian flu pandemic hits, 40 percent of its victims will be of school age.

“Yet only three school districts are represented here today,” he pointed out. “We really need to get more people involved in creating this emergency plan.”

“People won’t begin to be concerned until they are scared,” Skowhegan Fire Chief Jeff Miller commented.

Chandler said even though a draft emergency plan is required by the state by June and a completed plan by August, some counties have barely begun planning.

“This is the first meeting that the MCDC has been at,” he said. “You are doing a super job.”

Despite the low turnout, a leadership committee and sub-groups were established to begin the planning process. The working groups will meet at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, May 23, at the Skowhegan Community Center, and the leadership group will meet at 1 p.m. Tuesday, May 1, at the Somerset County Communications Center.

John Youney, chairman of the Local Emergency Planning Committee, was selected as facilitator. Higgins challenged everyone in the room to go out and recruit people to help create the plan.