The NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) and the NYS Department of Health (DOH) have begun their voluntary pre-event smallpox vaccination programs by administering the vaccine to public health workers and a small number of hospital staff. Vaccination of DOHMH staff began February 19, and the administration of the vaccine to health care response teams in NYC hospitals will begin next week. Although 68 of 72 hospitals in NYC have agreed to offer vaccinations to their workforce on a voluntary basis, the plan calls for the vaccinations to be administered in only eight hospitals initially, a process that is expected to take place over three weeks. The vaccination of workers in the remaining hospitals will begin in mid- to late April. The entire process is expected to continue through the end of May 2003. Similarly, on February 25, DOH began its program with the vaccination of DOH and local county health department workers, and a small number of hospital staff. The vaccination of hospital personnel under the State program will begin formally this week in eight regional resource center hospitals throughout NYS and will then be expanded to workers at the other participating hospitals beginning in April. The NYC and NYS programs are being undertaken pursuant to the Federal government's plan to create health care smallpox response teams across the country to ensure the availability of vaccinated workers who could care for the first several smallpox patients who might present to hospitals in the event of an outbreak, and who could also assist in establishing post-event vaccination clinics, should they be needed.
The programs involve the extensive education and training of potential volunteers as well as those who operate the clinics, in light of the possibility of adverse side effects from the vaccine. The process is designed to screen out potential volunteers with contraindications to receive the vaccine, ensure informed consent, and provide extensive monitoring of the vaccination site in order to treat possible adverse reactions and to minimize the possible transmission of the vaccine to others.
Tracking Vaccinations, Adverse Events: Thus far, almost 13,000 individuals have been vaccinated across the country as part of the Federal government's health care smallpox response team program, and no life-threatening adverse events had been reported as of March 3. In addition, over 310,000 Department of Defense (DOD) personnel have been vaccinated as part of DOD's program. The number of individuals vaccinated by state and the number of adverse events reported as part of the Federal program are available at www.cdc.gov/od/oc/media/smpxrprt.htm. Information about the military's program can be viewed at www.smallpox.army.mil (see "Safety Summary to Date" under "Adverse Event Info").
New Smallpox Vaccination Section on GNYHA Web Site: To assist members in considering and implementing the pre-event program, GNYHA has created a new section of its Emergency Preparedness Resource Center, located on its Web site at www.gnyha.org/eprc, which is devoted to smallpox vaccination issues. The new section organizes the materials into Federal, state, and local categories and includes a section regarding the legal, liability, and insurance issues raised by the program. GNYHA has also recently sent members a bulletin outlining the liability protections and insurance coverages available.