NYC Health + Hospitals recently held a multi-agency exercise to test the health system's ability to care for patients with H5N1 and prevent additional exposures.
"This exercise underscores our commitment to ensuring that our health system is prepared to respond to infectious disease threats, including H5N1," Syra Madad, MD, who led the exercise and is chief biopreparedness officer at NYC Health + Hospitals, said in an Oct. 22 news release. "While the current risk to the general public is low, these preparedness efforts are critical to testing protocols and maintaining a high level of readiness."
Four details:
- The drill was a joint effort between the New York City-based health system and the city's health department. It involved screening, isolating and caring for a patient with simulated symptoms of bird flu. All personnel involved in the drill donned appropriate personal protective equipment.
- During a virtual pre-screening, the patient reported mild respiratory symptoms after contact with an infected bird. The patient was sent to NYC Health + Hospitals/Kings County for testing, and simulated samples were sent to the health department's laboratory for testing. The drill involved a transfer to NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue for ongoing care, which tested EMS protocol for handling infectious disease patients.
- NYC Health + Hospitals is a leader in crisis management and emergency response. In August, three executives at the health system released a textbook featuring lessons from how the nation's largest public health system responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. New York City became the epicenter of the outbreak in spring 2020, with New York City Health + Hospitals treating more than 25,000 patients with the virus through 2023.
- The ongoing H5N1 outbreak has affected more than 300 dairy herds in 14 states since late March, according to the CDC. Twenty-seven human cases have been reported, mostly among people who work with infected dairy cows or poultry. Federal health officials have reiterated that the risk to public health is low and that there has been no evidence of human-to-human transmission. However, infectious disease experts have raised concerns the nation is not conducting enough testing to quickly identify and respond if and when that were to occur.