Official to outline state smallpox plan in visit to McCook

Lincoln -- Dr. Richard Raymond, Chief Medical Officer, Nebraska Health and Human Services System, will speak on Nebraska's smallpox vaccination plan at 7:30 a.m. Monday at the Coppermill, North U.S. Highway 83 in McCook.

"Nebraska is ahead of the curve in preparing our smallpox plans and in fact, some other states are basing their plans on ours," says Raymond. "But for our plan to be effective our local public health workforce needs to know how they fit into it. For that reason I'm visiting local health departments to give them a briefing on the plan and to answer their questions."

Raymond's presentation will present Nebraska's plan as it was submitted to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention earlier this month. Nebraska's Comprehensive Smallpox Response Plan is awaiting approval by the federal government.

The comprehensive plan includes a "pre-event" section which covers voluntary vaccination of workers who would be treating or investigating possible or actual cases of smallpox. The pre-event section of the plan also includes procedures for immunizing these volunteer workers. These workers will then be available to care for anyone exposed to smallpox while the "post-event" section of the plan is being implemented. The volunteers include physicians, nurses, emergency responders and others who will be on the front line in the event of a smallpox event in Nebraska.

If the federal government ever recommends mass immunizations, Nebraska's Comprehensive Plan calls for immunizing everyone in the state in a four-day period.