County Health Dept. joins in bioterror exercise

Two members of the Ocean County Health Department’s Bioterrorism Preparedness Unit took part in the state-sponsored Garden Vector Bioterrorism Weapon Tabletop Exercise last week.

The exercise was hosted in New Brunswick by the New Jersey State Office of Emergency Management in association with the New Jersey Domestic Security Preparedness Task Force. It was the third in a continuing series of training vehicles designed to help all levels of government agencies become more proficient in reacting to a bioterrorism incident.

According to State Police Maj. Dennis DelFava, the Emergency Management Section commanding officer, the Garden Vector exercise series is designed to explore the four phases of emergency management mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery from any bioterrorism incident.

While the previous two exercises focused on biological sampling and isolation/quarantine issues, the latest exercise stressed the roles of federal, state, county and local-level response. It also included the private sector’s role in such events.

Daniel Regenye, the Ocean County Health Department planner and bioterrorism grant administrator, and Edward Rumen, the bioterrorism risk communicator, were invited by the state to attend the exercise, held at Rutgers University.

The exercise script was based upon a bioterrorism incident at a college basketball game. The teams involved in the exercise represented public health, office of emergency management, law enforcement, public information, hospitals, Rutgers University, and Johnson & Johnson.

The tabletop exercise called for interaction among the participants to certain situations that were built into it. Teams used their actual written plans and procedures when making decisions and taking action. Morning and afternoon modules were conducted with extensive debriefings and group comment sessions following each module.