HOHENFELS, Germany -- The Hohenfels Health Clinic conducted a United States European Command (EUCOM) Pandemic Exercise Oct. 17 - 21 at the Hohenfels Community Theater and in stations established in the adjacent 7th Army Training Command's Joint Multinational Readiness Center (JMRC) training area and throughout the Hohenfels community.
The goal of the exercise was to safely and efficiently vaccinate 90 percent of the available active duty Soldier population within 120 hours. The exercise stipulated that the vaccinations must begin within 24 hours of the arrival of the flu vaccine as well as updating each Soldier's medical status in the Medical Protection System (MEDPROS), the secure database designed to track immunization, medical readiness, and deployability data for all active and reserve component Soldiers.
To meet the goal of the exercise the Hohenfels medical teams needed to immunize at least 1000 Soldiers by Friday, Oct. 21st. Throughout the exercise the Hohenfels medical teams gathered insights into best practices and procedures for a full-on pandemic scenario.
During the course of the week exercise planners used realistic pandemic scenarios to develop strategies for EUCOM and countries within EUCOM's area of responsibility to deal with a pandemic flu outbreak. The exercise objectives were to mitigate vulnerabilities during a flu pandemic; identify gaps or weaknesses in pandemic planning or in organization pandemic influenza continuity plans, policies, or procedures, and to encourage local garrison public and private organizations to jointly plan for and test their pandemic influenza plans.
The remote location of the JMRC training area and the Hohenfels garrison make it an ideal place for this kind of unique training event. The training area is situated in the Oberpfalz region of Bavaria and headquartered at USAG Bavaria, the JMRC regularly hosts a myriad of exercises and provides indispensable capabilities to the U.S. Army and it's European Allies and partners.
According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) a pandemic influenza is a global outbreak of disease that occurs when a new influenza virus appears or "emerges" in the general population causing serious illness, as it spreads from person to person worldwide. The most cited example is the 1918 "Spanish Flu" influenza pandemic that killed approximately 30,000 people in NYC, 500,000 in the United States and as many as 50 -100 million worldwide.
"A pandemic influenza is unique in that unlike many other catastrophic scenarios, it does not directly affect the Army's physical infrastructure." said Major Kaitlyn Perkins, Chief Nurse at the Hohenfels Health Clinic. "While a pandemic will not damage power lines, weaponry or computer networks, it will ultimately threaten all critical operations by its impact on a command's human resources and causing the loss of essential personnel for weeks - or months."
"Among the civilian population, economists and other experts predict that the effects of a modern-day pandemic would directly hinder and perhaps fully disable every government agency at local, regional, national and international levels. Typically, a pandemic influenza will come in "waves" each lasting 6-8 weeks with several months between each wave." Perkins said.
"Hohenfels was specifically targeted to execute this exercise due to it's size of our active duty population in order to gain a realistic capture of processes should a real pandemic outbreak occur. " said Hohenfels Health Clinic commander Lt. Col. Stacy Holman, on site at the garrison theater as medical staff organized and vaccinated Soldier patients. "Our team at the clinic is grateful to take part in the exercise because it perfectly showcases the great partnership and collaboration between our Hohenfels Health Clinic and JMRC."
The clinic vaccinated the 1,000th Soldier on Friday, Oct. 21 at approximately 9:40 a.m., and continued to vaccinate Soldiers for the rest of the day.
"We increased our pandemic capabilities - and if there is a new strain of flu we need to address in the future we know we can mobilize the resources to meet it. Although efficiency was essential to the success of the exercise, the parallel goal was to provide Soldiers with protection against the virus, to ensure their combat readiness." said Holman.
Before continuing Holman paused in thought and added, "This exercise is really the kind of win-win scenario you see when EUCOM, 7th ATC and BMEDDAC Soldiers come together!"
To learn more about the people and facilities of the U.S. Army Medical Department Activity Bavaria (BMEDDAC) and the clinics they support in Ansbach, Grafenwoehr, Hohenfels, Stuttgart and Vilseck visit the BMEDDAC website at www.rhce.amedd.army.mil/bavaria
Related Links:
U.S. Army Medical Department Activity Bavaria
U.S. Army Regional Health Command Europe
U.S. Army European Command website
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