IAFC ISSUES UPDATED ANTHRAX ASSESSMENT RECOMMENDATION

INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FIRE CHIEFS

IAFC MEMBER ALERT

For Immediate Release

IAFC ISSUES UPDATED ANTHRAX ASSESSMENT RECOMMENDATION

Advises Following Original CDC Guidelines

Friday, August 2, 2002, Fairfax, VA...According to a recent article in the Washington Post, the White House recently issued a memo to 250 federal agencies and to firefighters, police, and local officials across the country, warning that commercially available anthrax field tests may produce unreliable results in certain circumstances.

Since October 11, 2001, when the U.S. mail was contaminated with anthrax bacteria, many federal, state, and local agencies and first responders have used such devices to identify unknown substances resembling anthrax powder.

The IAFC has amended its recommendation for the field assessment of potential anthrax incidents as follows:

1) All "First Responders" should follow the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) which was originally referenced by the IAFC in a Member Alert on October 18, 2002. The information provided in that original directive is being re-issued in its entirety. Please see below.

2) Fire Departments are strongly advised not to rely solely upon hand-held assay devices for field assessment at this time.

ORIGINAL CDC GUIDELINES:

The following information has been produced by the Center for Disease Control for dissemination to the fire and emergency services community and is meant to serve as operational information for your internal purposes. Please pass this on to your fire and EMS departments.

CDC Information:

1. The first article: "Update: Investigation of Anthrax Associated with Intentional Exposure and Interim Public Health Guidelines, October 2001" is on the web at: www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5041a1.htm

2. The second article: "Recognition of Illness Associated with the Intentional Release of a Biologic Agent " is on the web at: www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5041a2.htm

Box 1 "Clinical Forms of Anthrax" is in the PDF file. The PDF file is attached. Also I attached the two articles in HTML for your use.

3. Information about clinical diagnosis and management can be found elsewhere (see references at the end of article two).

<<mm5041a2.htm>> <<mm5041a1.htm>> <<Mm5041.pdf>>

Additional information about responding to bioterrorism is available from:

¨ CDC at www.bt.cdc.gov ;

¨ The Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense at www.hopkins-biodefense.org <http://www.hopkins-biodefense.org>

Webmaster webmaster@mvafc.org , Information merwick1@aol.com