Health authorities on alert after extensive flooding in Europe

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http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/325/7361/405/a

BMJ 2002;325:405 ( 24 August )

News

Health authorities on alert after extensive flooding in Europe

Annette Tuffs, Heidelberg

Xavier Bosch, Barcelona

Hundreds of severely ill patients, including 80 patients who were in

intensive care, were successfully evacuated from Dresden's University

Hospital last week when the river Elbe exceeded the previous flood record of

more than 9 m and no end of the flooding was in sight.

The hospital, only 500m from the river, normally treats 1200 patients. The

main logistical problem in the crisis was to transfer the 80 intensive care

patients. When suitable beds were found elsewhere the patients were taken to

Dresden airport. Army hospital aeroplanes or helicopters transported them to

university hospitals in Leipzig, Berlin, Cologne, and Hamburg.

Earlier in the week Dresden's hospitals had begun to dismiss all non-urgent

cases and to put off operations. Doctors and hospital managers searched for

beds in nearby hospitals.

The only patients left were 10 people who recently received a bone marrow

transplant. Their evacuation was considered too risky because of their very

low immune defence capacities.

Meanwhile, it is feared that the flooding of chemical plants in the Czech

Republic as well as in Germany could cause longstanding environmental

problems.

In Spain, a village near Barcelona has been hit by an outbreak of

shigellosis, affecting over 10% of the population. The outbreak, caused by

Shigella sonnei, has been linked to consumption of drinking water that may

have been contaminated after heavy rains caused floods in Catalonia in the

first week of August.

The outbreak, affecting 670 people among the population of 6600 in the town

of Santa de Palautordera, caused a gastroenteritis-like disease, with

some people having dysentery and bloody diarrhoea.

Although no one has died, 20 patients have been admitted to a nearby

hospital because of the severity of dysentery symptoms. The Catalan

government's health department said everyone affected received water from

one of four companies supplying drinking water to the village.

Shigella infections are responsible for an estimated 600000 deaths a year

around the world, mainly in developing countries.

Last week the health ministry of Saxony, Germany, recommended that people

should not drink tap water in the worst affected cities, such as Dresden.

And the Czech government will vaccinate about 65000 children against

hepatitis A, which can spread when sewage systems are damaged and infected

faeces enter drinking water.

The health minister of the Czech Republic has asked the government to

provide 3.5m (£2.2m; $3.4m) for other public health measures after the

floods, including testing of drinking water and distribution of water

disinfectant.