DEAN SENSUI / DSENSUI@STARBULLETIN.COM
Jason Kaneshiro, city emergency medical services supervisor, showed yesterday how an ambulance infected by toxic agents in a terrorist attack would be decontaminated with a special device in a demonstration at the Alapai Bus Yard. Pearlridge Center donated the special decontamination equipment to the city. In other terror-related news, the city will begin testing the air daily for signs of germ warfare.
The city will begin around-the-clock air sampling on Oahu later this month to check for anthrax and other dangerous biological agents, said Salvatore Lanzilotti, Honolulu Emergency Services Department director. City to start screening
air for biological threatsStar-Bulletin staff
The city has tested water supplies and air samples at major public events since it received detecting equipment just over a year ago.
It will use similar equipment placed at five undisclosed locations for sampling as part of its Biological Weapons and Illness Prevention Program, said Lanzilotti, who noted that the change is not because of any perceived threat.
"We've tested the equipment, we've trained our people, and now we're ready to put it in," he said.
The samples will be tested once a day in the city's mobile laboratory. The laboratory uses a DNA test to detect anthrax or other bio-hazards.
If the test is positive, the sample will be taken to the state Department of Health's laboratory to determine if the DNA is from dead or live bacteria.
If the DNA is from live bacteria, it will be up to public health officials to determine what to do next based on how much of the bio-hazard was detected and the risk of exposure to the public, Lanzilotti said.
City & County of Honolulu
