Illinois Public Health Mutual Aid System Successfully Assists an Area Following Hepatitis A Exposure

Additional Nursing Assistance Provided by State and 14 Health Departments

[January 29, 2008]  SPRINGFIELD -- A statewide mutual aid system designed to strengthen public health efforts during emergencies successfully helped the Kane County Health Department provide medicine to people potentially exposed to hepatitis A at a restaurant last week. Health workers through the Illinois Public Health Mutual Aid System helped local health department officials distribute immune globulin, a solution to protect against various infectious diseases, to more than 1,700 people. The mutual aid system provides equipment, personnel, supplies and services to an area stricken by an emergency through local health departments that have joined the system.

Under Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich, the state's emergency response capabilities have been bolstered by the formation of statewide mutual aid agreements in public health, law enforcement and emergency management. Along with existing statewide mutual aid in the fire services, these agreements make Illinois the only state in the nation with statewide mutual aid in those four major disciplines. This provides Illinois with a greater ability to respond to acts of terrorism or other disasters anywhere in the state.

"This type of mutual aid agreement significantly improves our ability to respond in an emergency by pulling together the resources necessary to protect the health, safety and welfare of Illinois residents," Blagojevich said. "After working over the years to be able to respond to any emergency, large or small, we saw this week that our mutual aid system worked to help the Kane County Health Department."

Nursing assistance was provided to Kane County by Boone, Champaign-Urbana, Cook, DeKalb, DuPage, Kendall, Macon, McHenry, McLean, Vermilion, Whiteside and Will County health departments, along with the Illinois Department of Public Health, East Side Health District and Stickney Municipal Health Department, as part of the mutual aid agreement. The assistance was provided at no cost to Kane County.

"What happened in Kane County is a perfect example of the effectiveness of the Illinois Public Health Mutual Aid System and how health departments can assist one another in a time of need to help protect the public health," said Dr. Eric E. Whitaker, state public health director. "The Kane County Health Department needed additional nurses to administer immune globulin to hundreds of people immediately and was able to count on this mutual aid agreement."

Immune globulin has been given to more than 1,700 people who may have been exposed to hepatitis A at Houlihan's Restaurant in Geneva from Jan. 8 through Jan. 19 due to possible contamination of ice by a restaurant worker. The Department of Public Health sent a voice mail message through its Health Alert Network to approximately 160 ice skating teams throughout the country that recently participated in a skating competition in Geneva and may have eaten at the restaurant. The Kane County Health Department currently has a sufficient supply of immune globulin.

"We are so thankful that we are part of a mutual aid system," said Kane County Health Department Executive Director Mary Lou England. "The residents of Kane County and the state of Illinois should be proud that their resources have been invested in a regional system. We feel it is vital that such a system is in place."

In an effort to strengthen the preparedness of the public health system in Illinois, the mutual aid system was created in 2004, and all certified local health departments have signed the agreement. Any local health department in Illinois which has signed the agreement can request assistance from any other local health department in Illinois that has also signed the agreement. Participating local health departments can request assistance from the Illinois Department of Public Health, which disseminates the request to health departments around the state through the Health Alert Network.

The mutual aid system was previously activated this past July at the request of the East Side Health District, located in St. Clair County, due to storms and power outages. Three sanitarians from the St. Clair County Health Department assisted in that event.

[Text from file received from the Illinois Office of Communication and Information]