current public health risk is low
H5 Bird Flu: Current Situation
Governor Newsom takes proactive action to strengthen response to Bird Flu
What you need to know:
Dec. 18, 2024 – Following the spread of Bird Flu in sixteen states, including in California and outside the Central Valley, Governor Newsom proclaimed a State of Emergency to further enhance the state’s preparedness and accelerate the ongoing cross-agency response efforts. [read more]
While the current public health risk is low, CDC is watching the situation carefully and working with California to monitor people with animal exposures, using its flu surveillance systems to monitor for H5 bird flu activity in people.
H5 Monitoring in People:
Learn how CDC systems that monitor national, state, and local level influenza data are being used during the current avian influenza A(H5N1) situation.
CDC influenza (flu) surveillance systems show no indicators of unusual influenza activity in people, including avian influenza A(H5).
While the California State of Emergency announcement is centered around cattle and ranching industry, Mid-Cities Medical acknowledges this emergency event request and will continue to monitor the status of the Bird Flu cases throughout our service regions as part of our Emergency Preparedness Policy and Procedures.
- Patient education performed by staff
- Safety precautions
- In home personal hand sanitation, cough etiquette and quarantine practices
- Give out our website www.mid-citiesmedical.com which has a link directly to the CDC site for information about the illness.
- During monthly calls, prior to home visit, staff are asking patients/caregivers about being exposed/diagnosed with the illness/infection and symptoms.
- The purpose of identifying infectious patients is to reduce exposure by staff to infectious patients and subsequently secondary exposure to other patients due to lack of PPE during the home visit.
- Pre-identifying these patients allows staff to take precautions, wear PPE, to assure risk reduction to themselves and other patients.
- Employees will strongly be encouraged to be vaccinated for the illness
- No staff member developing or showing signs of illness will be allowed to come to work to protect the health of the patient and employee populations.
- Setting up limited access areas in our branch offices:
- Patients visiting our offices will have access to alcohol-based hand sanitizer, facial tissues, and signage from the Joint Commission’s website that encourages infection control.
- Limited staff interaction.
- During home visits, staff forms have a pre-existing area to annotate any infectious conditions as reported by the Patients or Caregivers. These reports would in turn be relayed back to the appropriate VA Medical Center. This will help to complete the Circle of Communication regarding the patient’s infectious status.
Should this event become widespread or pandemic:
- Office access by patients would be restricted or denied.
- Staff will be encouraged to limit exposure to the general population to reduce possible exposure to the illness.
- Office staff may be reassigned to work from home
- Route visits would be limited to Stat Emergency, New Patient Setups and Standard Concentrator with Tanks, LOX, or Tank only patient. UltraFill patients would be seen quarterly or when travel restrictions lifted.
- Supplies would be shipped to patients if shipping provider services were available.
- There would be a delivery of one quarter’s worth of supplies should Government agencies and the VA Medical Centers issue a restricted travel command for the State.
