For the past two years, New York and New Jersey infectious disease experts have been laser focused on prep and training for the upcoming FIFA World Cup games \u2014 with 1.2 million visitors from around the world set to watch 48 teams battle it out on the pitch.<\/p>\n
Across the US, those numbers skyrocket to 6-7 million.<\/p>\n
And with that massive influx of foreign visitors comes the threat of infectious \u2014 and sometimes deadly \u2014 diseases, including viral hemorrhagic fevers, RSV, tuberculosis, measles, varicella, hepatitis A, typhoid, malaria, SARS, hantavirus and even \u201chigh consequence\u201d diseases with high mortality rates, like cholera and Ebola.<\/p>\n
The matches at MetLife Stadium in Rutherford, N.J., will begin on June 13 and attract millions of fans from around the world. Getty Images<\/p>\n
A healthcare worker who volunteered in the Ebola response in Congo in 2019 gets decontaminated. REUTERS<\/p>\n
And then there are considerations for mass-casusalty events, like shootings.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole health care system in New York City will be on the alert for ALL of these events,\u201d Dr. Vikramjit Mukherjee, chief of critical care at Big Apple\u2019s Bellevue, told Healthbeat New York<\/a>. \u201cWe\u2019re looking at it like a huge migration event.\u201d<\/p>\n In October 2014, Bellevue became famous for treating New York City\u2019s only confirmed Ebola patient,\u00a0Dr. Craig Spencer<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause of what we\u2019ve seen in the last few years \u2014 Ebola, Covid, and mpox \u2014 we feel that we will be the ones who will be affected first for the next outbreak, and therefore have an additional responsibility of keeping prepared,\u201d Mukherjee said.<\/p>\n Florence Douyon (far left), Bellevue Hospital\u2019s Assistant Director of Microbiology, instructs trainees on how to safely handle special pathogens in a laboratory setting. nychealthandhospitals.org<\/p>\n New Jersey Transit Police Department\u2019s Office of Emergency Management (OEM), along with federal, state, county and local partners, conduct emergency response drills at the rail station near MetLife Stadium. REUTERS<\/p>\n The biggest training exercise saw 500 health providers from the New York\/New Jersey systems come together four four days to practice emergency air transport with a group of pretend patients suffering from infectious diseases from Toronto, a World Cup host city, to LaGuardia Airport in Queens.<\/p>\n The \u201cpatients\u201d were then taken to Bellevue for treatment. The exercise aimed to test workers\u2019 ability to handle a portable bio-containment unit \u2014 a device used to isolate and transport patients with highly contagious diseases.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tStart your day with all you need to know\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMorning Report delivers the latest news, videos, photos and more.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \u201cThat was the biggest drill we\u2019ve done, because that involved local, state, federal, and international partners,\u201d said Noel Alicea, a spokesman for Bellevue.<\/p>\n Hackensack Meridian Health in Hackensack, N.J. is the closest Level 1 trauma center to MetLife Stadium, the site of eight games in the tournament, including the July 19 World Cup final.<\/p>\n MetLife Stadium has a total seating capacity of 82,500 people. Anadolu via Getty Images<\/p>\n \u201cWe understand the concerns sports fans might have when it comes to attending an event with so many others, from the US and from other countries,\u201d Dr. Gregory Sugalski, an Army veteran and chair of teh hospital\u2019s emergency medicine, told The Post. \u201cBut I want to say two words to them: \u2018No fear.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cOur staff at Hackensack Meridian has been training and drilling for two years for this event. We\u2019ve been on the frontline of care for major NFL games for the Giants and Jets, alongside high-profile concerts for celebrities like Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran and Bruce Springsteen, and major entertainment events like Wrestlemania.\u201d<\/p>\n Much of the medical staff will be onsite during the games, ready to swing into action at a moment\u2019s notice, and dozens of ambulances will be revving their engines.<\/p>\n Staff at facilities across New Jersey \u2014 including St. Michael\u2019s Medical Center, Cooper University Hospital and Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital \u2014 have undergone extensive FEMA-style training too.<\/p>\n Fans cheer on their soccer team in FIFA World Cut Qatar 2022. Getty Images<\/p>\n The White House created a FIFA task force, led by Andrew Giuliani, the son of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. <\/p>\n Reporting to the Department of Homeland Security, Andrew Giuliani is \u201cspearheading the federal government\u2019s\u00a0<\/a>extensive efforts to ensure that the largest World Cup in history will also be the safest,\u201d according to the task force\u2019s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n Bellevue\u2019s Mukherjee is more pragmatic.<\/p>\n \u201cOur priority \u2014 our laser focus \u2014 is toward making sure our health care workers are safe as they go into relatively dangerous zones of high-consequence, infectious diseases . . . that\u2019s what we teach and train every day at the front lines,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the past two years, New York and New Jersey infectious disease experts have been laser focused on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":933225,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4316],"tags":[260974,21371,5205,12493,260975,60676,16665,105,4348,2207,67133,182065,5770,260976,16,15,76603,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-933224","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-bellevue-hospital","9":"tag-diseases","10":"tag-doctors","11":"tag-emergency","12":"tag-fan-injuries","13":"tag-fema","14":"tag-fifa-club-world-cup","15":"tag-health","16":"tag-healthcare","17":"tag-hospitals","18":"tag-infections","19":"tag-mass-shootings","20":"tag-nurses","21":"tag-sports-injury-center","22":"tag-uk","23":"tag-united-kingdom","24":"tag-us-soccer","25":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116505874767179293","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=933224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/933225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=933224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=933224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=933224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}