MODESTO – Actions taken Tuesday by the Stanislaus county Board of Supervisors are intended to make county residents better prepared against the potential threat of bioterrorism.

The board approved a measure at its Tuesday meeting to let the Stanislaus County Health Services Agency enter into an agreement with the California Department of Health Services and accept $654,168 to prepare for bioterrorism and other public health emergencies.

Funding was made available by a program authorized by Congress through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to upgrade state and local public health capacities in preparation for bioterrorism, infectious disease outbreaks and other public health threats.

California received roughly $58 million from this program – out of which $654,268 was awarded to Stanislaus County. Twenty percent of this amount will be immediately available for use.

The money is designed to give local jurisdictions better preparedness in response to the heightened threat of bioterrorism. One of the areas the program targets is the readiness of plans for receiving, managing and distributing the CDC’s National Pharmaceutical Stockpile, a program intended to ensure availability and rapid deployment of medical supplies and equipment in the event of a bioterrorism attack.

The funding will also be used to develop a highly functional disease surveillance system for the detection and investigation of a terrorist event. Effective laboratory services to rapidly detect and correctly identify biologic agents likely to be used in a bioterrorist incident will also be a main focus of the program.

Another area the program seeks to improve includes the security and effectiveness of communication between the local Public Health Department, the CDHS, health care organizations, law enforcement organizations and other public officials. It will also ensure the ability to provide necessary information to the public in the event of an attack.

The program will pay for education and training for key public health professionals, infectious disease specialists, emergency department personnel and other health care providers.

In other business, the board voted to accept $50,000 from the County Children and Families Commission to fund the Drug Endangered Children program.

The money will be used to give local children up to age 5 proper medical care and home placement when they are removed from homes concealing illegal drug laboratories.

As part of the program, experts from the UC Davis Medical Center will measure the physiological harm such exposure has on the children, who will undergo physical examinations, toxicology testing and blood chemistry analyses.

The program’s main goals are to restore the children’s health and provide cross-disciplinary and educational services to public employees and caregivers working with drug-endangered children.

Thirty-one children in Stanislaus County were removed from clandestine drug lab sites in 2000.

That year, the Central Valley was declared a high-intensity drug-trafficking area based on levels of the illegal trade in methamphetamine. California is known to be the world’s largest single source for production of that drug.

The agency that assists needy families will be able to pay for services they provided last year.

Supervisors gave the Public Economic Assistance budget a boost, authorizing the auditor-controller from the Community Services Agency to make the necessary budget adjustments and increase appropriations and estimated revenues by $1.4 million.

According to the agency’s assistant director, Geri Caviness, the agency underestimated expenses paid to aid families with dependent children for the year ending June 30, 2001.

The county’s share of the current cash assistance sought by the agency amounts to about $38,000. The remaining balance of the $1.4 million will be paid by the state and federal government.

Reprinted by permission of the Turlock Journal.