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 Health & Beauty | September 2005 
Focus Shifts to Disease After Katrina Trauma
 Michael Peltier - Reuters
| | New Orleans evacuee Taisha Blackwell was one of 350 evacuees who arrived in Los Angeles and were expected to be put up at the old Queen of Angels hospital now known as the Dream Center. (Photo: Gene Blevins/Reuters) |
Health officials are shifting their focus from trauma care to public health and infectious disease as concerns grow about polluted standing water in the flooded streets of New Orleans.
So far, however, physicians say infectious outbreaks have not occurred and may not be widespread thanks to an immunized public and historical trends. But they caution the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina could turn out different because the water may remain in the city for a very long time.
At the cavernous basketball arena-turned-field hospital at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, only a handful of patients remained in what had been a full 300-bed facility less than a week before. Combined with 500 beds at the neighboring field house, the complex is the largest functioning hospital in Louisiana, officials said.
The LSU-based medical facility processed 50,000 patients and admitted more than 5,000, according to preliminary estimates. The facility is expected to shut down in a day or two.
On Monday, hospital officials opened an isolation unit after cases of diarrhea were reported, but did not know yet if the outbreak was caused by Katrina or a food-borne source. So far, diarrhea and infected wounds are the major categories of ailment.
"We're preparing ourselves for gastrointestinal diseases. It is inevitable that it's going to happen," said Dr. Bernard Heilicser, a physician with the Illinois Medical Emergency Response Team, whose group set up the complex at LSU.
Experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta were en route to New Orleans on Tuesday to begin assessing the environmental and infectious disease risks. Meanwhile, emergency workers heading into New Orleans are being vaccinated against tetanus and hepatitis B as a precaution.
Decomposing Bodies
So far, post-hurricane reports from Mississippi and Texas have not turned up widespread outbreaks of either, said David Daigle, a CDC spokesman.
Hurricanes in the developed world typically are not followed by widespread outbreaks of cholera, typhoid, dysentery and other diseases. Decomposing bodies do not generally cause disease, the CDC says.
"What I hear from the CDC is that (widespread outbreaks after hurricanes) is somewhat of an overblown myth," Dr. Mark Shah, who is helping coordinating FEMA's medical response in Baton Rouge, said Tuesday.
"New Orleans is a different situation in that we have so much still standing water throughout this city. This hurricane may rewrite those textbooks."
One affliction being seen from New Orleans victims is severe skin rash, but doctors have yet to determine what in the post-hurricane soup of stormwater, sewage, bacteria, industrial chemicals, oil and gas is causing it.
"Some of it is likely an allergic reaction to one or more of the myriad of things that are found in the water," Shah said. "We really don't know what's in the water, to be honest with you."
The medical response to Katrina appears to be one of the bright spots in what has been a much-criticized relief effort after the devastating storm.
Medical officials had begun setting up the LSU medical response center on Saturday before the storm hit, tapping into the Strategic National Stockpile. A dozen semi trucks carrying medicine, equipment and supplies were delivered from the national system that distributes post disaster medical aid.
"This was one member of the federal family that was here before the storm," said Bob Alvey, a spokesman for the LSU medical complex. |
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