Across the country, police departments, hospitals and workplaces have heightened awareness and response strategies to possible anthrax contamination. The UC Davis campus and medical center are no different.
"The UC Davis Police Department recognizes the campus community has a heightened sense of concern," said Capt. Rita Spaur, in a letter to the campus community Monday.
"We continue to work with the UC Davis Fire Department, Environmental Health and Safety, and local, state and federal agencies to assimilate the most up-to-date information and to ensure a coordinated response," she said.
The campus police are training Mail Division staff to carefully handle and report suspicious packages and letters. The police department itself remains on "full alert status."
Well before the events of Sept. 11 and the recent anthrax alert, however, UC Davis was prepared to respond to possible biological terrorism threats. The medical center’s emergency department is trained in detection and decontamination techniques and the treatment of victims of biological warfare.
The department’s staff was able to use its skills last Friday when a woman arrived at the emergency room saying she had found a white powder on her office desk. The woman, who had no symptoms, was decontaminated, isolated and then released, according to Robert Chason, the medical center’s chief operating officer. The FBI has determined the powder was not anthrax.
While anthrax is kept on campus, safety standards for use of the agent are strict.
The campus’s California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory Sys-tem uses a non-lethal freeze-dried form of anthrax to compare and diagnosis other strains and diseases.
The anthrax is kept in a high-level biosafety facility, and veterinary staff use National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control standards when they handle the freeze-dried substance, said Carl Foreman, acting director of Environmental Health and Safety. A Biological Safety Advisory Committee periodically reviews campus protocols on handling anthrax and other contaminants, he said.
The UC Davis News Service has gathered information about anthrax and the campus response to the nationwide alert at its Web site. The site contains frequently asked questions, state of California’s emergency guidelines, tips on identifying anthrax, and how to handle suspicious packages. See www. news.ucdavis.edu/sept11_response/.