An exercise will be held soon to test the response of emergency agencies in Cole County should a bio-hazardous virus such as Ebola strike here.
County commissioners gave their blessing Wednesday to the request from county Health Director Kristi Campbell.
"It should be noted we have been told by the state health department that we and Kansas City are the best prepared to deal with an Ebola case," she told commissioners.
This comes after the health department, other local health organizations and emergency responders went over the response after a suspected case of Ebola turned out to be false.
"In the exercise we can test our Hazmat capabilities and decontamination," she said. "It's important to note that we will see random cases of Ebola in our country, but we won't see the widespread outbreaks we've seen in other countries, mainly due to our advanced medical institutions."
Ambulance Director Mike Shirts said they haven't had to deal with anything like this since after Sept. 11, 2001, when reports of suspicious substances being sent to state agencies had to be investigated. He said there will be some equipment costs that will have to be looked at to help with the response, but the best thing to do now is to educate the public about what causes the virus and its symptoms.