Pharmaceutical Regional Cache Update

NVERS maintains a regional pharmaceutical cache with the primary goal of maintaining continuity of local government during an incident; in other words, it ensures essential operations would continue, even during a large-scale, potentially high-risk incident. The cache includes pharmaceuticals needed to respond to both terrorist and non-terrorist events, such as an Anthrax attack or a chemical spill. The cache is immediately available and provides responders with adequate protection until Federal resources are deployed from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Strategic National Stockpile.

Some of the many benefits of the regional cache include:

-The cache ensures all jurisdictions in the region have the same level of pharmaceutical coverage.

-During a mutual aid response, the regional approach ensures that all agencies are aware of what pharmaceuticals are available in a neighboring jurisdiction.

-The purchase of pharmaceuticals on a regional level keeps the costs down for each jurisdiction.

-By working in collaboration, the region brings multiple disciplines and agencies together to make a unified decision on the best method of coverage for the region.

-The regional approach requires only one responsible entity to maintain the cache as opposed to each jurisdiction maintaining individual caches.

-All regional deployment plans work in alignment with the pharmaceutical cache.

Given that Northern Virginia contains many nationally significant sites and critical infrastructure, in addition to being host to high profile events and persons on a regular basis, it is necessary to plan for terrorist attacks. The pharmaceutical cache is just one of many tools Northern Virginia has in place to respond to an attack. The regional cache is funded through the FEMA Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) program and purchasing recommendations are made by the NVERS Medical Supply and Pharmaceutical Working Group and validated by the NVERS Steering Committee and other critical partners.