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Washington State's role in the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile plan

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State role in National Pharmaceutical Stockpile Plan Word Version

Introduction: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) maintains a large stockpile of antibiotics, vaccines and medical supplies for use in a large unusual disease outbreak or other public health emergency, including a bioterrorism attack. The National Pharmaceutical Stockpile (NPS) has two basic components. The first component consists of eight 12-hour "push packages" for immediate response positioned at strategic, undisclosed locations around the country. Push packages would be delivered within 12 hours of a federal decision to approve a request for the NPS from the governor of any state. The NPS was deployed for the first time when it was sent to New York City after the September 11,2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. The second component is called Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI), drugs shipped directly from manufacturers (vendors) at federal request. If the incident requires a larger or multi-phased response, tailored VMI packages will be shipped after the push packages, arriving within 24 to 36 hours.

• The Department of Health has led the development of the Washington state plan for receiving and managing the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile, which will become part of the Washington State Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan.
  
  
• This plan would be activated when an event occurs which appears to exhaust state and local supplies of antibiotics or medical supplies. The steps:
  
  
  • In consultation with local counterparts, state health and emergency management recommend that the governor ask the CDC to deploy the NPS.
    
    
  • State health officials send staff to the NPS arrival airport; staff prepares to receive, repackage, and distribute the needed antibiotics and medical supplies to local dispensing sites and hospitals.
    
    
  • Within 12 hours of CDC's approval of the governor's request, the NPS push-package arrives at a designated airport within the state.
    
    
  • Once the NPS push package arrives, a Department of Health representative would inventory and sign for it.
    
    
  • State staff would rapidly repackage the antibiotics into individual prescription size packets for distribution to affected cities and counties.
    
    
  • Cities and counties would set up sites to dispense the antibiotics to affected residents.
    
    
  • Some of the medical supplies that are contained in the push-packages will be distributed from the airfield directly to hospitals and clinics that are responding to the event.
    
    
  • If the incident requires a larger or multi-phased response, additional medical supplies and antibiotics from the stockpile more "tailored" for the suspected or confirmed agent would arrive in the 24 to 36 hours following the deployment of the initial push package.

More information on the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile is available from the CDC Web site.

For more information call Communications Director Tim Church, 360-236-4077; or Media Relations Manager Donn Moyer, 360-236-4076.

Revised 03-17-2005

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