Posted on: Friday, November 8, 2002

Hawai'i bioterror ranking outdated

By Scott Ishikawa
Advertiser Staff Writer

An official with the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this week that, contrary to earlier reports, Hawai'i is not one of the worst-prepared states in the event of a bioterrorism attack.

CDC official Steven Bice sent a letter to state health officials saying the state had a low red-plus rating in May 2002, but has made changes to improve its rating.

Gov. Ben Cayetano and state health officials had slammed a report last week by a federal official saying Hawai'i was only one of two states that had the red rating. Cayetano charged that the timing of the report by President Bush's undersecretary for health and human services was meant to influence Tuesday's general election.

Bice's letter "reaffirms that Hawai'i is well prepared and could handle a bioterrorism event if it were to occur today," Cayetano said yesterday.

State officials yesterday said they received the letter dated Tuesday from Bice, director of the CDC's National Pharmaceutical Stockpile Program. "I have no doubt that the work of you and your staff has raised your... preparedness rating out of the red range," Bice wrote.

State Health Director Bruce Anderson said information used by federal officials for Hawai'i's ranking was based on a May evaluation and did not include updates or Bice's visit last month to check on progress.

According to Anderson, Bice said during his visit that Hawai'i has "made tremendous improvements."

The color ratings are red, yellow and green — with red the lowest in terms of preparedness and green the highest.

"If the ranking is based on distribution of medicine, I say we are in the middle of the pack right now or the yellow category," Anderson said. "If you include the fact that we have added lab space, surveillance equipment, and have hired a full-time pharmacist to help prepare against bioterrorism, we should be among the top states."

Anderson said that with the help of a $8.4 million federal grant in June, Hawai'i has a medicine stockpile of 40 shipping container loads to be distributed statewide in the event of an attack.