By TIM ALEXANDER
Illinois Correspondent

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — A crucial test of the nation’s newly designed animal disease outbreak preparedness program was held in Wheaton, Ill., in late June, though not many of the northwestern Chicago suburb’s 55,000 citizens were aware anything was “afoot.”

As Wheaton residents went about their day, an international homeland security training exercise sponsored by the USDA – simulating a widespread Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) outbreak – was taking place in the city, as part of a three-day meeting of first responders to animal disease outbreaks.

“We tried to keep it low-key,” said Jim Kunkle of the Illinois Department of Agriculture (IDOA), which hosted the event that drew approximately 120 participants representing USDA, Canada, the National Veterinary Stockpile (NVS) and the 13-member Multi-State Partnership for Security in Agriculture.

The partnership includes state departments of agriculture, state veterinarians’ offices, homeland security advisors, animal health and emergency management divisions from Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and eight other states.

The participants came together to test and evaluate the readiness of USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service-Veterinary Services (APHIS-VS) and the ability to allocate and deploy components of the NVS, Kunkle said.

“The NVS has just been established in the last year or two to respond to animal disease outbreaks.

The NVS is comprised of items needed in order to respond to an emergency animal livestock disease, such as personal protective equipment like throw-away coveralls, boots, gloves, dust masks and eye protection, vaccines, syringes and whatever else is needed to respond,” Kunkle explained.

“This was an actual deployment to test our ability to be able to accept, inventory, repackage and send (NVS materials) out to Farm A or Farm B in case of an actual event.”

FMD is a highly contagious livestock disease that could rapidly devastate a herd or even the entire livestock industry if an outbreak were not contained, according to IDOA Director Tom Jennings. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is concerned an intentional act of agriterrorism could involve introducing FMD or other quick-moving animal diseases to the nation’s cattle and swine herds, which is why Kunkle would not reveal the location in central Illinois where the state’s NVS is located.

“The USDA does not even want anyone to know where it was delivered from,” he said. Kunkle did disclose the NVS arrived via semi and participants unloaded the supplies, conducted an inventory and simulated the redeployment of the NVS’ contents.
The full-scale exercise followed a two-day tabletop meeting that allowed Illinois’ first responders to meet and collaborate with other members of the 13-state partnership on how to develop a more coordinated and comprehensive response to outbreaks. First responders from Illinois and two other states participated in the full-scale exercise.

Kunkle said the results of the NVS deployment exercise would be discussed at an upcoming “after-action conference” and some adjustments would likely be made to the system as a result of the test. He asked that the specifics of the changes he would recommend not be made public until after the conference.

Jennings issued a statement regarding the exercise and its effectiveness, saying “all groups agreed that the deployment exercise was a great learning tool and we will use the lessons learned to improve our NVS response plans. We feel confident that we will be able to respond adequately to an animal disease emergency.”

The IDOA was supported by the Illinois Emergency Management Agency and the Illinois Department of Public Health in the exercise.