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Defense Department Funds $5.7 Million
Pandemic Flu Response Program
Multi-disciplinary TexSHIELD builds on UT Health Science Center preparedness research
The Fiscal Year 2006 budget for the Department of Defense includes $5.7 million in federal funds (under Public Law 109-148) earmarked for a new pandemic influenza preparedness and response program based at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.
The new “Texas Science, Humanitarian Intervention, Education and Leadership in Disasters” (TexSHIELD) is a multi-disciplinary program that conducts basic and clinical research on public health interventions focusing on potential pandemic influenza prevention and response.
“TexSHIELD will help fill the critical need in this country to develop an educational, training and technical capacity that facilitates the global involvement of American doctors, nurses and other allied health professionals in our response to global emergencies, such as the recent tsunami, flu epidemics and the possibility of bioterrorism,” said S. Ward Casscells, M.D., vice president for biotechnology at the UT Health Science Center and director of TexSHIELD. “The tenets of military medicine, international disaster relief, and the new technologies of military planning can be assisted by civilian medical teams dedicated to this purpose.”
The Center for Biosecurity and Public Health Preparedness at the UT School of Public Health, directed by Scott R. Lillibridge, M.D., will provide the training and planning component of TexSHIELD.
“Dr. Lillibridge has proved that preparedness can be taught as part of an integrated curriculum: readiness, rescue, resuscitation, repairs and rehabilitation,” said Casscells, who also is the John Edward Tyson Distinguished Professor in Cardiology. “Now, TexSHIELD will develop tools to provide answers to prevent or lessen the impact of an influenza pandemic.”
Casscells thanked Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and Congressman Tom DeLay “for supporting this critical avian influenza preparedness program.” He said, “Dr. Scott Lillibridge and I look forward to developing and implementing the tools for TexSHIELD in order to reduce the impact of this looming pandemic.”
Casscells’ team has been working on influenza research for more than seven years and is a leader in influenza biology, clinical practice and policy. While on active duty as the U.S. Army Medical Command’s senior medical advisor for avian influenza and pandemic influenza, Casscells was awarded the U. S. Army’s Meritorious Service Medal for his strategic leadership and assessment abilities.
“As the last several months have indicated, disasters happen with little or no notice. It does not matter the disaster, what matters is the preparedness,” Casscells said. “The need to respond in an expedient manner is great. It is also important to educate the community prior to and during disasters, whether natural or man-made.”
Casscells said that the work of TexSHIELD will assist in the war on terrorism and help to provide rapid relief services to U.S. allies.
TexSHIELD follows more than $16 million in competitive grant awards to the Texas Training and Technology for Trauma and Terrorism (T5) program at the UT Health Science Center. T5 develops and tests a variety of telemedicine and telecommunication technologies that feature real-time remote monitoring of patients who are in locations where hospital care is not readily available. These technologies are being designed to offer emergency medical care in rural areas, on the battlefield and in disaster areas. To learn more about TexSHIELD, visit http://www.texshield.org.
By David R. Bates, Public Affairs