Background
Provision
A plague refers to a rare but highly contagious disease that can spread and kill rapidly. Some of its symptoms include fever, headache, fatigue, among others. Such a disease requires immediate treatment or containment due to its ease of transmission. Without containment, it can be quickly spread across a geographic region. The city has had one case of the plague from a homeless person who has been in its borders for two weeks. The individual has been in close proximity with about fifty other people. While no local hospital has recorded treating a case of the plague, there exists a risk that this disease may spread. To respond to the epidemic effectively and prepare epidemic management sufficiently, this response and preparedness plan has been drafted.
Objectives
The objectives of the plan will include;
To establish the primary components of the preparedness and response activities and public health interventions for an effective response to a potential plague epidemic.
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To mitigate morbidity and mortality or any societal disruption that may result from the epidemic (Fatiregun et al., 2017). This is with the interest of protecting public health and maintaining social stableness and development.
Principles
Prioritizing prevention and actively organizing and implementing the preparedness to respond to the plague epidemic.
Outlining coordination and command by detailing the active coordination of different levels.
Prompt warning and effective response. Strengthen the capacity of epidemic surveillance and alert, make the preparedness timely through the use of science and technology.
Organization and Commanding System and its Responsibilities
Leading Group
The leading group for response and preparedness will be the mayor's office. The mayor should be the leader of the group while working with senior associates, the police force, and the local hospitals within the city. The acting office of the mayor will have responsibility for routine activities, with all activities being controlled internally.
Roles
The roles of the office will include;
Leading and coordinating the readiness and response activities with the city health department and other involved organizations.
Setting up an effective communication mechanism and channel in conjunction with the needed departments under the city council.
Publicize the outcomes of the surveillance, release warnings, and present relevant measures to the public.
Mechanisms
The leading group will have regular meetings held by the mayor to summarize evolvement and outline the coordination of the problem. The epidemic plan shall be revised regularly based on different updates.
Preparedness Activities
Surveillance
Healthcare facilities appointed by the mayor's office shall allocate specific staff for the surveillance of the plague. The staff will be responsible for collecting, recording, and transporting the samples of plague illness. An epidemic center within the city will be established with the capacity of identifying, analyzing, and assessing the plague and providing guidance on required activities.
Reporting (Within 6 Hours)
All plague cases should be reported by all hospitals in the city within six hours. Any information on outbreaks, clusters, and abnormal cases should also be promptly reported.
Communication
The mayor's office will be responsible for coordinating with relevant authorities to set up a mechanism for information exchange and cooperation on the epidemic surveillance. A disease reporting network will be used to create a Surveillance Information System (SIS) that will be easily accessed by all affected parties (Gouglas et al., 2019).
Preparedness of plague serum (1 Week)
At the moment, the city has zero capacity to provide, manufacture, or obtain plague serum. Due to the large debt that city hospitals owe to several pharmaceutical companies that manufacture plague medication, the mayor's office will have to seek financial support from the financial government to purchase the plague serum by itself. This will ensure that there is a constant supply of the needed serum.
Preparedness of Healthcare Services (2 Weeks)
To ensure that healthcare services are adequately prepared, the mayor's office will have to mobilize the supply and provision of gloves and protective equipment to all healthcare facilities and the police department.
Preparedness of Personnel (8 Days)
Both the police office and the staff in all healthcare facilities, including nurses, epidemiologists, clinicians, and laboratory experts, will need technical training on the services and protocols to be observed if the epidemic begins. This training exercise will have to be conducted across the city.
Technological Preparedness (5 Days)
The health administration of all facilities will have the responsibility of training the technical staff. Technical staff must know diagnostic standards, identification of the disease, treatment principles, disinfection, isolation, and personal protection (Kelly-Cirino et al., 2019).
Response
Treatment for Patient and Close contacts
The healthcare workers in every appointed health facility should place personal protection and hospital infection control measures in place.
Surveillance Report
Preliminary examination sports should be set in all health facilities within the affected area. If suspected patients are found, they should be isolated immediately and reported (Oppenheim et al., 2019). Healthcare administrators should make a summary report on surveillance activities daily to the city's health department and the mayor's office.
Health Education and Consultation
Proper education of the public on the epidemic should be conducted only once 10 cases are identified. People should be instructed to stay home in isolation and enough information provided to avoid public panic.
Conclusion and Monitoring
The plan identified above should be constantly updated based on any changes or shifts in surveillance outcomes. Close coordination is essential to ensuring the epidemic is mitigated.
References
Fatiregun, A. A., & Isere, E. E. (2017). Epidemic preparedness and management: a guide on Lassa fever outbreak preparedness plan. Nigerian Medical Journal: Journal of the Nigeria Medical Association , 58 (1), 1. https://dx.doi.org/10.4103%2F0300-1652.218414
Gouglas, D., Christodoulou, M., Plotkin, S. A., & Hatchett, R. (2019). CEPI: Driving progress toward epidemic preparedness and response. Epidemiologic Reviews , 41 (1), 28-33. https://doi.org/10.1093/epirev/mxz012
Kelly-Cirino, C. D., Nkengasong, J., Kettler, H., Tongio, I., Gay-Andrieu, F., Escadafal, C., ... & Boehme, C. (2019). Importance of diagnostics in epidemic and pandemic preparedness. BMJ Global Health , 4 (2), e001179. https://dx.doi.org/10.1136%2Fbmjgh-2018-001179
Oppenheim, B., Gallivan, M., Madhav, N. K., Brown, N., Serhiyenko, V., Wolfe, N. D., & Ayscue, P. (2019). Assessing global preparedness for the next pandemic: development and application of an Epidemic Preparedness Index. BMJ Global Health , 4 (1), e001157. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2018-001157
