The Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Plan (128 pages) establishes methods and procedures to be used by the Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Public Health Services and other emergency planning agencies to respond to public health emergencies. This plan is intended to be multifunctional in that, while some events will require the execution of specific sections only, a large-scale public health emergency will require the execution of this entire plan, and it will also be used to simulate exercises and drills. The plan was reviewed by the NH Communicable Disease Epidemic Control Committee, a group of health officials from the Community and State levels. Portions of the plan are still under development and will be posted to the web when completed.
Available annexes to the plan are described below:
Annex A, the New Hampshire Point of Dispensing (POD) Site Guide
(237 pages) Points of Dispensing (POD) sites to administer vaccine or dispense antibiotics are likely to be part of the response to infectious disease outbreaks of any magnitude. These incidents can range from a single case of Hepatitis A in a food handler that requires Hepatitis Immune Globulin to be administered to thousands of people within a few days, to cases of meningitis in a school where mass dispensing of medication on short notice is needed, to an influenza pandemic or bioterrorist event involving thousands of people or even the entire population. As all public health is local (i.e. impact at the community level), the response to public health emergencies will need to be mobilized within communities with state assistance.
The main body of this guide is a general manual for community based mass prophylaxis in response to a public health emergency. Because specific diseases may require disease specific adjustments of the POD model, an appendix or other references will be provided for some of the most common diseases that may involve mass prophylaxis.
NH emergency plan-Annex K-Training Plan for Public Health (8 pages) is designed to provide a comprehensive structure to ensure education and training addresses core competencies for emergency preparedness and response to bioterrorism, infectious disease outbreaks, and other public health threats and emergencies, hereinafter referred to as "all emergencies." |
