Residents of the devastated Gulf Coast region face new threats in the form of disease, health experts fear.
Federal health officials are rushing in medical supplies and setting up 40 medical shelters with a total of 10,000 beds staffed by 4,000 health personnel, says Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt, USA Today reports.
Meanwhile, federal officials are helping state and local health teams move the people who need medical attention toward 2,600 hospital beds across 12 Southern states. Another 40,000 beds nationwide have been identified where patients can be moved if needed, Leavitt says.
“We’re still battling the laws of physics and time, but the response of the nation has been compassionate and remarkable,” he said after a news briefing Wednesday.
“The big worry next is disease. Any time there’s that much water and you add heat, and debris and waste, both human and chemicals, we have concerns about chemical contamination, food safety, mosquitoes. We’re deploying teams from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and FDA (Food and Drug Administration) as rapidly as they can be formed.”
Health dangers are everywhere, from the threat of drowning to West Nile virus to carbon monoxide poisoning from gas grills and generators.
Among the most urgent concerns is the lack of clean water.
People who ingest floodwaters contaminated with sewage could contract intestinal parasites that could cause nausea and diarrhea within a day or two of exposure.
The illnesses can be treated if properly identified through lab tests. But it’s critical for patients with vomiting and diarrhea to replace lost fluids by drinking clean water, says infectious disease specialist Gary Kalkut of Montefiore Medical Center in New York.
Local hospitals in Louisiana and Mississippi have been forced to evacuate patients. Emergency rooms are treating patients hundreds of miles away in Dallas, Nashville and Atlanta. They’re bracing for more to come.
“We’re in the middle of an unprecedented air evacuation,” says Tom Judge, president of the Association of Air Medical Services, the trade group whose members are transporting patients to hospitals outside the flood area.
The Navy will send the hospital ship USNS Comfort to the region next week.
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