Analysis of the Ancillary Supply Waste Incurred During the Response Mass Immunization to the Influenza Pandemic

Learning Objectives for this Presentation:
By the end of this presentation, participants will be able to understand the need to have detailed recommendations for an underestimated consequence of the NSPI.

Background:
In May 2006 the United States Homeland Security Council made public the implementation plan for the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza (NSPI). The plan stipulates that mass vaccination will be conducted in two stages. First, immediately after a pandemic influenza begins, twenty million people will be immunized with pre-pandemic influenza vaccines. Second, after six months of the pandemic declaration, the entire American population will be immunized with specific vaccines for the influenza virus causing the pandemic. This mass immunization campaign response will incur a large consumption of ancillary supplies and its resulting waste disposal. In order to adequately manage the resulting waste, it requires quantifying the correct volume of generated waste material, and the capacity for its collection and incineration. However, the amount of the resulting waste would depend on the time needed for executing each of the two mass vaccination stages.

Objectives:
To understand the impact of the execution time of the mass vaccination stages of the NSPI on managing the ancillary waste disposal.

Methods:
Apply cost analysis tools on the activities and layout of the mass vaccination centers as recommended in the NSPI.
Use capacity analysis and resource quantification for dealing with the resulting waste throughput

Results:
The shorter the time needed to execute each of the mass vaccination stages, the higher the demand of resources for dealing with resulting ancillary waste disposal.

Conclusions:
The federal government should provide guidelines for local authorities that allow them to quantify the necessary resources to effectively deal with the ancillary waste of the mass immunization stages. These guidelines should describe the maximum time for implementing each of the stages (once vaccines are available) and the resulting frequency of waste collection.