thedrifter
07-28-06, 08:23 AM
Portsmouth sailor fights bird flu
sheinatz@dailypress.com 247-7821
July 28, 2006
For most of his 18 years in the Navy, Petty Officer 1st Class Linwood Pulley has trained and fought alongside Marines.
He's a hospital corpsman. His job is to be there should a Marine get hurt.
But since February, the 36-year-old Portsmouth native has been involved in what he calls, "work that's more about helping people and less about defense."
Pulley is in Djibouti, on the Horn of Africa, where he is using his medical expertise teaching people how to detect and keep from being infected by the H5N1 strain of the bird flu, which humans are not immune to.
In early April the first case of the virus, which has infected birds and people mostly in Asia, was found there.
Several chickens in a backyard flock suddenly died.
The Ministry of Agriculture was notified, and a four-person team, which included Pulley, was assembled to investigate.
The U.S. Central Command - the Defense Department unit that oversees operations in Iraq and Afghanistan - also leads the Djibouti-based Combined Joint Task Force, Horn of Africa. Djibouti is sandwiched between Eritrea and Somalia and borders the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea.
Long-term missions there include combating terrorism. In the short term, service members are also providing clean water to Djiboutians, improving roadways and working in medicine.
When Pulley was sent out to check on those chickens, he was admittedly a bit scared. Since 2003, 133 people have died from their infections.
"But the fear factor fades," Pulley said during a phone interview Thursday.
He donned protective gear - masks, gloves and a white suit that he pulled over his uniform and boots.
"We went in there and inspected and tested a few chickens in the yard," Pulley said.
Three chickens tested positive.
Then a little girl living a few miles away in a small village was found to be infected.
Medical personnel still don't know how she caught the virus. She had no contact with the dead chickens as far as Pulley said they could tell.
While a British company announced this week that, if approved, it could mass-produce a vaccine next year, finding this first case of the virus in Djibouti was cause for concern.
"So we've been helping educate people," Pulley said.
The military medical team, with the French military and the World Health Organization, is teaching people what the bird flu is.
They're putting medical personnel on "what we call on-the-job-training. We show them how to detect the virus. We teach them the different safety measures we use to draw blood, to do throat swabs."
No additional cases have been found since those first positive tests.
"But there is still a lot of research to be done."
Ellie
sheinatz@dailypress.com 247-7821
July 28, 2006
For most of his 18 years in the Navy, Petty Officer 1st Class Linwood Pulley has trained and fought alongside Marines.
He's a hospital corpsman. His job is to be there should a Marine get hurt.
But since February, the 36-year-old Portsmouth native has been involved in what he calls, "work that's more about helping people and less about defense."
Pulley is in Djibouti, on the Horn of Africa, where he is using his medical expertise teaching people how to detect and keep from being infected by the H5N1 strain of the bird flu, which humans are not immune to.
In early April the first case of the virus, which has infected birds and people mostly in Asia, was found there.
Several chickens in a backyard flock suddenly died.
The Ministry of Agriculture was notified, and a four-person team, which included Pulley, was assembled to investigate.
The U.S. Central Command - the Defense Department unit that oversees operations in Iraq and Afghanistan - also leads the Djibouti-based Combined Joint Task Force, Horn of Africa. Djibouti is sandwiched between Eritrea and Somalia and borders the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea.
Long-term missions there include combating terrorism. In the short term, service members are also providing clean water to Djiboutians, improving roadways and working in medicine.
When Pulley was sent out to check on those chickens, he was admittedly a bit scared. Since 2003, 133 people have died from their infections.
"But the fear factor fades," Pulley said during a phone interview Thursday.
He donned protective gear - masks, gloves and a white suit that he pulled over his uniform and boots.
"We went in there and inspected and tested a few chickens in the yard," Pulley said.
Three chickens tested positive.
Then a little girl living a few miles away in a small village was found to be infected.
Medical personnel still don't know how she caught the virus. She had no contact with the dead chickens as far as Pulley said they could tell.
While a British company announced this week that, if approved, it could mass-produce a vaccine next year, finding this first case of the virus in Djibouti was cause for concern.
"So we've been helping educate people," Pulley said.
The military medical team, with the French military and the World Health Organization, is teaching people what the bird flu is.
They're putting medical personnel on "what we call on-the-job-training. We show them how to detect the virus. We teach them the different safety measures we use to draw blood, to do throat swabs."
No additional cases have been found since those first positive tests.
"But there is still a lot of research to be done."
Ellie