States split $1.2 billion for bioterrorism preparedness

California has been given nearly $130 million to help strengthen its capacity to respond to terrorism and other public emergencies — the most of any state.
The Department of Health and Human Services announced similar funding in every U.S. state and territory, along with four of the country’s major metropolitan areas.
“Improving our nation’s response to public health emergencies is an important part of securing America,” says HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt. “All emergency incidents — whether naturally occurring, accidental or terrorist-induced — begin as local matters and with this program, states and communities will build on the preparedness gains they have made over the past four years.”
Two of the four metro areas — Los Angeles and New York City — received about $35 million each, while Chicago was given $16 million and the District of Columbia was allocated $8.5 million.
The top-funded states are California ($129.9 million); Texas ($79 million); Florida ($59.9 million); and Pennsylvania ($44 million) — (Please see link below for the full allocation chart).
The funds will be used to improve infectious disease surveillance and investigation, enhance the preparedness of hospitals and the health care system to deal with large numbers of casualties, expand public health laboratory and communications capacities and improve connectivity between hospitals, and city, local and state health departments to enhance disease reporting. The funds will also be used to exercise existing response plans, test capabilities and evaluate improvements. These emergency preparedness and response efforts are intended to support the National Response Plan and the interim National Preparedness Goal.
The HHS funding is awarded via two separate but interrelated cooperative agreements. HHS’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is providing $766 million to develop emergency-ready public health departments by upgrading, improving and sustaining their preparedness and response capabilities for “all-hazards” public health emergencies, including terrorism and other naturally-occurring public health emergencies.
Included in CDC’s $766.4 million is $5.4 million for the Early Warning Infectious Disease Surveillance program specifically for states bordering Canada and Mexico (including the Great Lakes States) for the development and implementation of a program to provide effective detection, investigation and reporting of urgent infectious disease cases in the shared border regions of the three nations. States included in this program are Alaska, Arizona, California, Idaho, Indiana, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.
HHS’ Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) is providing $450 million for states to develop medical surge capacity and capability to deal with mass casualty events. This includes the expansion of hospital beds, development of isolation capacity, identifying additional health care personnel, establishing hospital-based pharmaceutical caches, and providing mental health services, trauma and burn care, communications and personal protective equipment. Hospitals and other health care providers play a critical role in both identifying and responding to any potential terrorism attack or infectious disease outbreak.
To see the entire funding table broken down by state, Click here