Louise Grim is chairperson of the Berks County Pandemic Preparedness Advisory Council; Professor Emeritus, Alvernia College; a member of the Reading Hospital and Medical Center Emergency Preparedness Team; and a member of the UCC PSEC Disaster Ministries Response Team.

If you lived in New Orleans, would you purchase flood insurance? Would you keep an axe in your attic? Many people in New Orleans wish they had heeded the warnings and had been better prepared. Many paid with their lives for this lack of preparedness. Let us not make the same mistake.

In the next few months we will be discussing ways you can insure your health and safety as it relates to pandemics. This information will help you prepare now and lessen the impact of this life-threatening event on you and your family. In addition, if you are prepared for a pandemic you will also be prepared for many other disasters.

Every year, some 36,000 people die of seasonal flu in this country. Did you know that when a pandemic flu strikes those numbers increase drastically? Why? Because a pandemic is a worldwide outbreak of an infectious disease for which no one has immunity, which causes serious illness, and which is very contagious. So while existing vaccines can protect you from seasonal flu, they will be of little or no value during a flu pandemic until new vaccines are developed, which may take months. In addition, the supply of vaccines and anti-virals will likely be insufficient to meet the needs. But there are things you can do to protect yourself and your family.

What is the likelihood that a pandemic will occur any time soon?
History informs us that pandemics occur at the rate of three or four each century. The last century was no exception, with three pandemics. One of them, the 1918 Spanish flu, was the worst ever recorded, with up to 100 million deaths worldwide. In today s population figures it would equate to 300 million deaths. The last pandemic which occurred in 1968, was thankfully much less severe. But we are overdue for the next one, and that is what has health officials worldwide quite concerned, especially in light of the deadly avian flu.

What you need to know
Unlike seasonal flu, an influenza pandemic can occur at any time of the year and lasts much longer, coming in waves that can last six to eight weeks, separated by months. The second wave is often the most serious.

Many workers (up to 50 percent) in all types of occupations, including health care, financial, business, education, government, utilities, communications, food service, transportation, police, and fire may be affected. We are likely to experience major disruptions in all services, which will require that every citizen in each community across the nation be prepared in order to survive. Are we up to the challenge?

Importance and benefits of being prepared
The effects of a pandemic can be minimized for you and your family only if you are prepared to face its consequences. Preparing for a disaster, whether a pandemic or other crisis, helps bring greater peace of mind and confidence in facing the crisis and greatly increases our ability to survive the events. We have a critical role to play as individuals to insure our safety and that of our families and community when a pandemic strikes. Do not expect the government to step in and rescue you. If you do, you will be very disappointed. Our survival and that of our family will completely depend on how well we are prepared to meet the challenges that lie ahead. The time to plan and prepare is now.

As you begin your individual and family planning and preparation, you may want to visit the following website: http://www.pandemicflu.gov/plan/checklists.html . This site provides checklists and other tools to help guide your planning efforts.

If you do not have access to the internet, the Red Cross at 701 Center Ave., Reading (phone 610-375-4383), has a very helpful brochure on family preparedness.

Another source of information is the CDC (Center for Disease Control) hotline, available 24/7 at 1-800-232-4636.

In the next articles, we will discuss the challenges that a pandemic will present and how we can overcome them and protect ourselves and our families until vaccines are readily available. Stay tuned.

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