AC 2010 was led by the U.S. Air Force Reserve and was supported by Airmen, Soldiers, Sailors, a Corps officer and an Environmental Health Specialist from the Yukon Kuskokwim Health Corporation. For 2 weeks in April the joint-interagency medical, dental and veterinary services provided much needed care to 12 remote Alaskan villages within the Northwest Arctic Borough region, located 32 miles above the Arctic Circle. The land size of the Northwest Arctic Borough’s is about the size of Indiana.
Medical and dental services, though available, require a person to travel 75-150 miles to the hospital in the hub community of Kotzebue. Travel is expensive and often dangerous in this land where wind-chills regularly reach 40-50º below zero. There is no road system; travel is limited to small aircraft, boats and All Terrain Vehicles such as 4-wheelers and snow machines. Veterinary services are non-existent. Delivering this level of care at the local level is invaluable in such an isolated environment.
Five teams from the 994th MED DET VS were comprised of approximately seven individuals and were transported between villages via Army National Guard UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters to deliver veterinary care. LTJG Burbage was actively involved in a diverse range of activities. She assisted the vet teams in administering rabies vaccine to hundreds of animals. Rabies is enzootic in foxes in Alaska; providing rabies vaccine to pets is imperative in protecting humans from the virus.
LTJG Burbage teamed with the Air Force Reserve Public Health Officer, and provided public health education in the schools on dog bite prevention, rabies control, the importance of hand washing, and food safety. More than 50 classes were conducted with more than 400 attendees.
Additionally, LTJG Burbage had the opportunity to be trained in fluoride application. She teamed with Air Force dental hygienists to apply fluoride varnish treatments to children’s teeth in the local schools. Many remote villages lack direct dental services. Preventive dental care is critical in these remote areas where the prevalence of oral disease is the highest in the Nation.
AC 2010 offered a unique opportunity and experience for all who participated. LTJG Burbage, said, “It was an honor to work alongside so many men and women from the other services in a public health effort. Their professionalism was evident in all that they did, and I am thankful to have been a part of it.”
AC 2010 provided services in an area of much need, and the residents greatly benefited. Operation AC is in its sixteenth year. This year, 263 military personnel participated.
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HHS, Office of Public Health and Science |