Question

In 200 words,

Looking at the Zika Virus, identify and explain four steps (one step for each emergency management focus area – Mitigation, Preparedness, Response, Recovery) that local emergency management must take to help with such events in communities across America. Identify which one of the four would be your highest priority. (Thinking along these lines is important because we never know what will be the next major health crisis we will face.)

Answer 1

The four steps that local emergency management should take to help with events like Zika virus in America are:

- Mitigation- This can be done by adopting ways of prevention of the virus and other reasons to develop that causes the damage. Anticipating the risk and implemeting control activities to mitigate the causes for it is the solution. It can be done through spreading awareness about practices like vaccinations, animal culling, developing sanitation and safety habits. The virus developing in the environment can be dealth before it spreads by these meausres.

- Prepardness- This involves being ready to deal with the disaster when it occurs. This can be done by training the medical staff and providing facilities to the health providers to deal with an emergency. The staff should be trained well enough about the disaster details and how it can be responded to. The infrastructure should be such that any such emergency can be dealth easily. Plans and systems should be made and tested beforehand to deal with such emergencies.

- Response- The steps that can be taken to be responsive towards such emergencies are collection and integration of data of epidemiologic and analyzing it for being resposive at the time of emergency. Sharing this data and other resposnse health functions with other health partners, creating and spreading guidelines and messages regarding the emergency risk to the at risk population and implementing the control measures immediately at the time of emergency.

- Recovery- For the recovery that can happen after a proper response management to bring the disaster effected back to normal conditions the steps that can be taken are implementing the programs and plans of response functions, reestabling and strenthening health systems, treating the affected populations in the best way physically and mentally to recover from the disaster damage caused.

My highest priority would be mitigation as the avoidance of any such virus spread in the country and effecting the population itself is the solution. Being prepared or responsive for it might solve the purpose of fighting with it once it has already created the damage but not letting it spread itself at the first place will serve the purpose in all ways. Once such viruses spread and effect the place it is difficult even after proper response and recovery to bring the conditions back to normal or how they were. Hence developing such environment where the factors of such health crises can be mitigated is the best way to deal with it.