Medical counterbioterrorism: the response to provide anthrax prophylaxis to New York City US Postal Service employees.
OBJECTIVE
We describe and analyze a recent rapid deployment of disaster medical assistance teams and other government agencies to provide medical screening and anthrax prophylaxis to New York City US Postal Service employees potentially exposed to letters contaminated with anthrax spores.


METHODS
A description of the response effort is presented. Data were collected on standardized forms and included the numbers of postal employees screened and offered antibiotic prophylaxis, as well as the numbers of patients seen per worker hour by various medical professionals.


RESULTS
One hundred members of 5 disaster medical assistance teams and other health professionals were deployed to New York City within 18 hours of activation. Over a 68-hour period, 7,076 patients were evaluated, representing all postal employees in the 6 major postal facilities in New York believed to be at risk for anthrax exposure. Of the total, 2,452 patients were seen during the first 24 hours, 3,875 during the second 24 hours, and the remaining 749 during the last 20 hours of operations. An average of 161 employees were screened per hour. The antibiotic most commonly dispensed was ciprofloxacin, followed by doxycycline and amoxicillin.


CONCLUSIONS
The deployment of disaster medical assistance teams and other agencies to New York City to provide prophylaxis against inhalation anthrax to US Postal Service employees provides lessons for a rapid, efficient, and effective response to acts of bioterrorism. This deployment might also serve as a scaleable model for future events requiring medical prophylaxis.
Partridge
Robert
R
Office of Emergency Preparedness, Department of Health and Human Services, Rockville, MD, USA. Rpartridge@lifespan.org
Alexander
John
J
Lawrence
Tom
T
Suner
Selim
S
D000881:Anthrax / Q000517:prevention & control*; D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use; D023482:Bioterrorism / Q000517:prevention & control*; D015709:Correspondence as Topic; D004189:Disaster Planning / Q000458:organization & administration*; D017598:Efficiency, Organizational; D005544:Forecasting; D006302:Health Services Research; D006801:Humans; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000458:organization & administration; D017146:Models, Organizational; D009519:New York City; D009786:Occupational Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration*; D010349:Patient Compliance / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010561:Personnel Staffing and Scheduling / Q000458:organization & administration; D011177:Postal Service; D012017:Referral and Consultation / Q000458:organization & administration; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors; D013997:Time Factors; D016526:Workload
D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents