A plan to deal with any suspected anthrax attack in the State was finalised yesterday.
Announcing details of the plan at a hastily convened press conference following reports of several suspect packages being delivered to addresses across the State, the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, said he wanted "to calm people down". He pointed out Ireland was not considered a target for a primary attack. "There could be vulnerability to a secondary attack," he said.
The guidelines, devised by an expert committee he set up in the wake of terrorist attacks on the US, were being issued as a precaution, he said.
The plan deals with the procedures to be adopted in the event of a suspected anthrax attack, including patient treatment and management, and how to deal with suspect packages believed to contain anthrax. The symptoms of anthrax and the characteristics of suspect packages are also listed. The protocol has been issued to the fire services, the garda∅, the defence forces and the directors of public health in each health board area.
Mr Martin confirmed there was likely to be a meeting of EU health ministers next week to discuss a co-ordinated response in the event of a suspected attack.
He said sufficient stocks of the antibiotic Ciprofloxacin had been secured to treat patients in the event of an attack. Anyone coming in contact with suspicious packages will be put on this treatment until results of tests on the package are known. Some 1.6 million doses of the vaccine will arrive in the State next week - enough to treat about 7,000 patients for eight weeks. A quantity of smallpox vaccine has also been ordered, and tenders have been sought for a supply of iodine tablets.
The Minister said there had been a number of hoax anthrax scares in the US and the UK and anyone found to be behind similar hoaxes here would be pursued vigorously by the garda∅. "People cannot really play games with these kind of issues because they involve a lot of personnel and any hoax in this context is to be condemned out of hand and would be placing an unacceptable strain on the emergency services," he said.
He said suspicious packages would initially be dispatched to the Cherry Orchard public health laboratory in Dublin and from there to Southampton for analysis.
The Minister insisted a proper co-ordinated plan was now in place even if "in the early stages things may not have been perfect".
The plan is on the Department of Health's website at www.doh.ie