2005 Hurricane Response Efforts of the CDC National Immunization Program (NIP)
NOTE: This document is provided for historical purposes only and may not provide our most accurate and up-to-date information. The most current disaster information can be found on the CDC Natural Disasters and Severe Weather homepage.
NOTE: The text of this page is taken directly from the 2006 National Immunization Program (NIP) Annual Report.
Vaccinating local health workers in Gulfport, Mississippi following Hurricane Katrina
Before Hurricane Katrina made landfall in August, the Office of Preparedness and Emergency Response (OPER) began working in the Director’s Emergency Operations Center (DEOC) in anticipation of several issues that were certain to arise in the aftermath of the storm. OPER staff assisted in the initial recruitment of CDC’s public health response teams, who could initially deploy during the response, and over 70 people from NIP were deployed on missions to the affected region or to lead and support teams in the DEOC. OPER staff played a key role in helping to lead the CDC-wide deployment efforts in response to Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. Many of the deployed staff from NIP headquarters conducted needs assessments in states affected directly or indirectly by the hurricanes. In discussions with those states, NIP staff helped to determine what the states needed to keep immunization programs going, especially in terms of their vaccine needs.
OPER coordinated the issuance of interim vaccination recommendations for emergency workers deployed to areas impacted by Hurricane Katrina as well as displaced persons from this region. The focus of the recommendations for displaced persons was two-fold: one, to ensure that children, adolescents, and adults are protected against vaccine-preventable disease in accordance with current recommendations, and two, to reduce the likelihood of outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases in large crowded group settings. Along with these recommendations, NIP worked with FDA to assess the supply of all vaccines recommended for workers and for those in shelters, including what the manufacturers had in stock, what was available in CDC’s stockpile, and what could be identified in state inventories. Manufacturers also donated vaccines directly to states or private organizations, and NIP monitored the magnitude of those donations. OPER, in collaboration with NIP’s Immunization Services Division, also coordinated the purchase of vaccine supplies in accordance with the interim recommendations for the states of Louisiana and Mississippi.
In addition to the doses purchased, the Texas state health department used vaccines on hand to begin vaccination of sheltered persons in Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio. When these vaccine supplies were exhausted, NIP helped to arrange for other states not impacted by the hurricane to contribute vaccine resources—more than $6 million worth—to support ongoing vaccination activities. Texas then had adequate supplies of vaccine on hand to vaccinate the remaining displaced persons.
Through the end of 2005, NIP remained in frequent contact with the state immunization programs which oversee or manage vaccination initiatives among displaced persons and emergency first responders.
Immunization Information Systems Help Children Avoid Extra Immunizations
In Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, many people who had to evacuate because of Hurricane Katrina lost not only homes and possessions but personal records such as their children’s immunization records. Existing immunization information systems made it possible for states to locate children’s records to determine immunization status prior to school enrollment. In Louisiana alone, CDC estimated that as early as October 2005, more than 20,000 queries were made to the Louisiana Immunization Network for Kids Statewide (LINKS) regarding vaccination histories for children who were evacuated. LINKS remains functional because a backup system located in Baton Rouge has been operational since Katrina struck.
An Alabama Department of Public Health professional spent the day in an evacuation center. When she asked one mother with seven children whether she had any immunization records, the mother said she had nothing. Using the LINKS system, the public health professional found records on six of the seven children. The mother exclaimed, “We have proof that we are real people!”
Thousands of young evacuees throughout the United States have benefited from LINKS by gaining access to their immunization records electronically. Although special provisions were made to accept students without proof of immunization into their new schools, having an immunization record provides extra assurance that no delays will occur, and no immunizations will be repeated unnecessarily. CDC recommends that children be vaccinated again if records do not exist. CDC estimates that 75% of the immunization history queries made to LINKS have been from Texas, particularly from the Houston area.
For health professionals only, several means were made available to access immunization history data from LINKS, including using Health Level 7 (HL7) messaging or just “view only” access. HL7 enables not only access to information but also the ability to input information. For example, if a provider administers a vaccination to a child who was displaced, they may input this information into LINKS directly from their location, and the immunization record stays up-to-date. As of early October 2005, eight states and the city of Houston had HL7 direct access to LINKS. “View-only” enables a provider to access LINKS and to view the immunization history from their location. A total of 43 states, Washington, D.C., and 10 cities have “view-only” access to LINKS.
These connections established by NIP immunization information systems enabled many immunization histories to be retrieved thereby reducing or eliminating the need for costly re-vaccination of Hurricane Katrina displaced children.
Page last modified August 28, 2006