Originally Published PMPN October 2001
EDITORIAL
Packaging Preparedness
There is some comfort in knowing that our nation is making efforts to provide widespread emergency medical care for victims in the event of a tragic attack like that of September 11, 2001.
Routinely,
with little drama, doctors, nurses, and patients depend upon medical device
and pharmaceutical packaging to save lives. As a packaging professional, you
know that the packaging you design, develop, test, and manufacture keeps instruments
sterile and drugs stable, contributing to their safety and efficacy.
Drug and device packaging played a more urgent role after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center September 11. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released one of the eight 12-Hour Push Packages that are maintained in prepackaged, prepositioned caches in secure storage facilities around the country. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, the packages "are designed to be deliverable to any area of the continental United States within 12 hours of deployment, with substantial supplies to address a wide variety of potential needs."
Authorized by HHS secretary Tommy G. Thompson, this deployment marks the first emergency use of the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile. The Push Packages contain pharmaceuticals, intravenous supplies, airway supplies, emergency medication, bandages and dressings, and other materials to cover a spectrum of medical needs. Each "package" is really several truckloads of medical materials and is intended to be sufficient to respond to an emergency involving mass casualties, according to HHS.
In this case, the package was sent specifically "to support the medical personnel and facilities in New York so that they could deliver the best possible care to those who were injured," Thompson said. It also supported a two-year-old rapid response program to provide special aid to New York City. The remaining Push Packages of the stockpile are on call in case of another emergency.
In the aftermath of these devastating attacks, there is some comfort in knowing that our nation is making efforts to provide widespread emergency medical care for victims. Sadly, it took a national tragedy to demonstrate the need for such readiness.
Daphne Allen, Editor
Copyright ©2001 Pharmaceutical & Medical Packaging News
