By KRISTI L. NELSON
Knoxville News-Sentinel
 Companies given chance to stockpile anti-flu drug

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — You and a couple thousand other people might have been exposed to the organism that causes anthrax. So you get in your car, drive through a checkpoint, fill out some paperwork, and 15 minutes later, you're on your way, antibiotics in hand.

This is how the Knox County Health Department hopes it could respond to a bioterrorism event or another communitywide medical emergency. The health department tested a drive-through method of dispensing mass quantities of medicine June 30 at Karns High School.

In the role-playing scenario, people showed up in local hospital emergency rooms with unexplained respiratory illness; two people died. Health officials investigated and found all had attended a sold-out concert at the Knoxville Civic Auditorium and Coliseum. The health department put out notification that people who had been at the concert might be at risk for anthrax and should take medication to avoid getting sick.

That's where the drive-through dispensary came in. This drill was one of the first in the nation to test a drive-through method of giving out pills; other regions and other states sent observers.

Officials at KCHD and the East Tennessee Regional Health Department - which mounted a similar operation the same day in the gymnasium of William Blount High School in Blount County-spent months planning the drill that left the health departments running with a skeleton staff for one day.

"Every year when we do Flu-Mist (in Knox County schools), it's a mass vaccination clinic; we vaccinate the entire school in a couple of hours," said KCHD Medical Director Dr. Martha Buchanan. "We feel pretty comfortable with a walkthrough (set-up). We wanted to do something different."

KCHD asked for community volunteers to drive through the clinic; Pilot Corp. donated gas cards for drawings and Icee drinks to sweeten the deal. County employees also participated.

Upon entering the school parking lot, each volunteer received a sheet with instructions to play a certain role: a concertgoer

who felt fine, for example, or someone with an allergy to one or more of the medications used to treat anthrax, or even someone picking up medication for others.

Volunteers

went through six stations, filling out paperwork, answering questions and ultimately getting "pills" and printed information. Time was tracked by a bar-code system. About 300 cars went through, short of the minimum 500 KCHD had hoped for, but time was good: Cars got through all stations within 20 minutes at the most congested times, and less than 10 when the traffic was lighter.

Health officials were happy with the layout and staffers, said spokeswoman Ranee Randby; future clinics might see bigger signs and clearer registration forms.

The drill also tested local hospitals' surveillance systems and the Homeland Security Strategic National Stockpile, a reserve of medications and supplies to augment local supplies in the event of a large-scale emergency.

The drill definitely has practical applications, even without an emergency, said John Lott, Knox County director of nursing.

"It is a possibility that in the future we could do things like ... give flu shots using this type of method, if it works well," he said.

Copyright 2008 Knoxville News-Sentinel Co.