Shreveport Medical Team Immunizes More Than 1,000 Hurricane Relief Workers
Navy NewsStand
Story Number: NNS050920-02
Release Date: 9/20/2005 1:05:00 PM
By Lt. Cmdr. Jensin W. Sommer, USS Shreveport Public Affairs
NEW ORLEANS (NNS) -- Operating initially out of a pierside warehouse and then the parish Emergency Operations Center (EOC) at a nearby oil refinery, corpsmen from USS Shreveport (LPD 12) conducted immunizations for more than a thousand local and federal relief workers in September.
Six hospital corpsmen worked in daily shifts to provide Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B and tetanus shots to Marines, National Guardsmen, sheriffs, firemen and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) personnel. Some evacuees and media members also benefited from the free inoculation service.
Relief workers are particularly vulnerable to illness and disease because of potential exposure to blood, fecal matter and rusted sharp metal in the mud and ruins, according to Chief Hospital Corpsman Sequiel Agustin.
“These immunizations will protect them from some of the hazards they face,” he said. “Depending on how up-to-date their shots were, not everyone needed all three.”
Over 13 days, the corpsmen inoculated more than 1,100 people for a total of more than 1,600 shots.
It would have been impossible to serve all these people without the Navy’s help, said Dr. Ken Iserson, who deployed with the Arizona Disaster Management Assistance Team in direct support to FEMA as chief of the EOC’s medical clinic.
“This has been an absolute joint effort, with the Navy jumping right in to give us the help we needed,” he said. “These Sailors have been amazing.”
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