Recommendation to receive and file a report from the Health and Human Services Department on their outreach and response regarding the recent outbreak of Meningitis in Long Beach particularly with the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) community. The report should include statistics on cases in Long Beach and Los Angeles County, existing outreach and programming in Long Beach, specific outreach efforts with the LGBTQ community and next steps for reducing the number of new cases in Long Beach.
Communication from Councilwoman Gonzalez, Councilwoman Price and Councilwoman Mongo recommendation to receive and file a report from the Department of Health and Human Services on their outreach and response regarding the recent outbreak of meningitis, particularly with the LGBTQ community. Councilman Gonzales. Yes, thank you. I want to thank Kelly for being so patient with us, and I'd like to request a staff report from you, if we could. Good evening and thanks for the opportunity to share with you our efforts around the meningococcal disease. Just a little bit of a background. So the disease is caused by a bacteria called Neisseria and it can be found in the nose and throat. And often people carry it and they don't even realize that they're sick. The meningococcal disease is transmitted from one person to another where there's direct contact either through or sorry saliva or through coughing or sneezing. Close contact, living in the same household or sharing utensils, food or drinks can really can spread. So if you're in large group situations like dormitories and other places like that. Your symptoms include things like high fever, bad headaches, stiff neck, nausea and vomiting, confusion, low blood pressure and just muscle pain. Anyone experiencing these symptoms should see their medical provider as soon as possible. It can be treated with antibiotics. And then we also encourage the vaccine. And the vaccine kicks in after about 7 to 10 days. What we've found so far in in L.A. County is that there have been 20 confirmed cases in the past few months in L.A., Long Beach and Orange County together. Seven of those cases are in Long Beach. And to put those in perspective, we've only had one between 2011 and 2015. So seven is a much higher number. Four of those seven cases have been identified as those among gay or bisexual males. And there were two deaths, both in Orange County, because of the disproportionately high prevalence of the disease among men who are gay or bisexual. It's now recommended that for all gay or bisexual men and anyone who is HIV positive, regardless of any individual other risk factors, that they should be vaccinated. Our efforts so far is we're really partnering closely with L.A. County and Orange County in our work and also with our community providers. We've collaborated with the LGBTQ center in Long Beach. We offer two Saturday clinics, free vaccinations, and we're able to give 122 vaccinations total between those two days. We're offering free vaccines at the health department so anybody who can come in, make an appointment and we'll provide a free vaccine. We've given out 139 total. Beyond that, the other places that are providing the free vaccine are also the AP Health and Wellness Clinic at Saint Mary's and Age founded Health Care Foundation on PCH. We're providing up to all of our health care providers so that they're like we're letting them know about the vaccine recommendations, guidelines, reporting and other outbreak information. And we're also working with local providers if they need to get ahold, if they need some vaccine, we're working closely with them to make sure that they have it. So overall, we're really we're tracking on this. We're partnering very closely. We're in conversations with the CDC, with the state public health and our partners, and really outreaching and educating as much as possible to make sure that people are vaccinated as appropriate. That's the end of my report if you have questions. Thank you. Oh. Sorry. Thank you. Councilwoman Gonzales, there's an echo in here. Thank you. Sorry. I just wanted to thank you, Kelly, for bringing this forward. I wanted to make sure that we had another educational forum for residents to learn about this meningitis and what they can do to prevent this disease. And I want to thank your staff and you for being so committed. Also working with the center to be able to provide vaccines to our communities. I have a couple of questions. As we've had this outbreak and I don't know if it's now titled as an outbreak, but what is our like how is our community outreach? I mean, what are we what is our normal process? I know you said you connected directly with the LGBT center, but are there any other outlets that you use for communication? Yeah. So at play and also the AIDS Health Care Foundation, we're reaching out through through those populations, through those organizations as well, as well as all health care providers. So anyone who goes in and is being seen and has concerns that they know about the vaccination and how that can occur. Okay. And then is there a point person at the health department in your shop that is working on this directly? Or who would that person be normally if there is something similar that would or if this grew for any reason, unfortunately. Yeah. So Dr. Marotta, who is our acting health officer and as well as Josh Jacobs, who is our clinical supervisor, the two of them are really participating in those outreach efforts. And then our epidemiology group, John Holguin, is leading the tracking and the investigation portion. So if someone comes in and is diagnosed, we do reach out to those who they've had contact with to make sure that they if they have the illness, that they're on antibiotics immediately. Great. And I would also just suggest that going forward, if we do have something similar where we can reach a specific demographic like the LGBTQ community, perhaps we can look at other areas. Like some, you know, the maybe billboards that we can put up that, you know, say, hey, get vaccinated, this is where you go here. Or some places like, you know, that maybe the LGBT community frequents a little bit more often. So I'm just thinking of those additional ways to to outreach. Yeah. But yeah, so. I just it just on our website, we do have frequently asked question pages. The L.A. County also has a very good website about different clinics that are offering the free vaccine and other information. If anybody needs additional information. Great. Well, I think 139 vaccines to our community is just tremendous. I want to thank you again your team. I want to thank Senator Laura. We had an event with also thinking council member Pearce for for being there and supporting. And I also want to thank my co-sponsors, Councilwoman Pryce and Mongo, for also being committed to to seeing this through. So thank all of you. Great. Councilwoman Pryce. I just want to thank Councilwoman Gonzalez for bringing this forward and Kelly for a fantastic staff report. Thank you. Yes, Kelly. Excellent. Always excellent work. Thank you. Public comment saying yes. Please come forward. Come on down. If you don't have a comment, line up, please. That was my jog down to get my 3 minutes started. So, Counsel, thank you very much. And thank you very much to the health department for taking this meningitis outbreak seriously. The LGBTQ center is incredibly proud to partner with the health department to offer free vaccinations. We are incredibly thankful to Senator Laura and Councilwoman Gonzalez for hosting an event along with Hamburger Mary's and Long Beach Lesbian Gay Pride that. Raised funds for our organization to be able to. Provide outreach from a community perspective. One of the things I can absolutely tell you is I have owners of our LGBTQ bars asking if the health department has capacity. To bring out mobile units. To provide vaccinations. While the center is. Always happy to provide space. To provide vaccinations, we're really fortunate we can provide vaccinations. They can provide vaccinations. The more we can get folks out in the community where they're congregating, where there's going to be an easy access point is going to be a win win to get folks. These. Vaccinations. So, you know, we're really looking to work with the health department on what we can do to increase that capacity to especially reach our gay and bisexual men who are most at. Risk for contracting meningitis. We are also here to serve as a partner. In order to. Share information. Heaven forbid there is another there's another outbreak of something contagious impacting our community or any community. We want to be there to be able to get information that is accurate, listing vaccination sites out as quickly as possible, especially with an illness that can be prevented by vaccination. It's not enough to provide information. It's critical that information on where folks can be vaccinated is included in those preliminary messaging and talking points that. Are sent out to communities. But we are again incredibly proud to partner with the health department to offer resources to our community. We're incredibly thankful of. The support. Of our city council on taking this issue seriously. And thank. You very much for. Your consideration and thinking about the meningitis outbreak happening right now. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. Miguel Gutierrez, health care consultant. Today, I'm speaking on behalf of an organization I work with, APL Health. The new federally funded health center has been seeing dozens of persons and vaccinating them, thanks to the effort of the Department of Health, the LGBT Center. And in addition to some of the outreach events that have been occurring, championed by Councilmembers Pierson, Gonzales and State Senator Latta, there's been a pretty good social media campaign going on as well. And again, those vaccination clinics were pretty effective. One of the things that I wanted to say is actually we're taking notice that even persons from outside of the county boundaries are coming in, taking notice of the lead that we have here in Long Beach on this issue. And I really wanted to commend the organizations for that. Know, as a consultant, I did speak to Kelly just very briefly. And one of the things I recommended was that, you know, the future report contains some type of correspondence. We have two large hospitals with EHRs as thousands of persons every year. We have several large physician groups that represent hundreds of physicians. And in addition to that, we have a health plan with multiple clinics here in the city. It would be good to get written correspondence from those organizations, considering they take care of thousands of Long Beach lives and just get an understanding of really what actions they're going to take with respect to outreach, notifying the patients that come through their doors, letting them know what the risk factors are. In addition to that, what are their plans for vaccination? Are they going to bring on vaccines or are they going to refer to a partner that carries some of the free county vaccine? Again, these are, again, some just recommendations, not a criticism at all. I just had a little more time to think about it over the last few hours. But again, I thank you again for your consideration. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. I'm very impressed. You guys are all still with us at this point. And so congratulations. My name is Ace Robinson. I'm a new resident of City of Long Beach. I'm in the third district. I serve as the executive director of Care Program at Dignity Health in St Mary's Medical Center. For the past 30 years, as you may well know, CARE or the Comprehensive AIDS Research and Education Program has addressed medical and social needs of people living with HIV entities such as care that primarily serve people living with HIV historically and presently serve people who are often co-infected with other bacterial and viral diseases due to their compromised immune system. Therefore, diseases that are normally rare can often become more prevalent in their social communities, even if their friends or their loved ones are not living with HIV. Due to the recent outbreak of meningitis in L.A. County, inclusive for Long Beach Care's clientele must be highly diligent to ensure that meningitis is not, in fact, more people without hindrance. They not only rely on the care program, but also the mayor, the city council and the Department of Public Health of L.A. and our Health and Human Services Department to support them. HIV disproportionately impacts gay and bisexual men, thus to the high rates of co-infection of people living with HIV and meningitis also disproportionately impacts these same populations such as myself. In order to accomplish the shared goals of the Long Beach Department of Health and Human Services and the Memphis City Council. Care fully supports the Council members recommendation to receive and file the report outreach in response to the recent outbreak of meningitis, but also to strongly recommend a thorough review of the amount of culturally tailored. Outreach. To communities disproportionately impacted by meningitis. That includes people living with HIV, that includes gay and bisexual individuals. That also includes our street involved individuals, whether they're chronically or transitioning house and active drug users. We can't actually address all these preventive needs unless we have that tailored type of outreach and the resources allocated to deliver culturally competent and medically accurate information to communities at risk for meningitis. Of the 89 people that we delivered the vaccine to, I would say if I had to guess, maybe about 10 to 15 of them actually knew how meningitis could be transmitted and if they were at risk. And a lot of them had those types of questions as do I need to get a booster? Is this something I already had? So and so forth. So we need more information. And so finally cares. Committed to providing the competent, timely care to all of our populations. And I look forward to your support. Thank you for your type of time and attention. Thank you. See no other public comment. We're going to go ahead and back and take a vote. Councilwoman Gonzalez. I just wanted to thank all three of you, Porter and Miguel Ace, for being here and your expertize. And I know that Kelly and I are taking notes and we'll certainly work together to get some of those suggestions implemented. Thank you very much. Thank you. Council member Pearce. Yes. I just wanted to say thank you, Kelly, for your report back and definitely want to encourage us to think about how we are being culturally sensitive and doing outreach to places that we might not typically do outreach to and say that I'm here as a resource for you all and any outreach that you guys might need . Thank you. Councilman Austin. Thank you. I think this is a great item, is very responsible. I think that the last speaker actually made some some great points. And I'm not exactly sure that that that his points are actually codified in this language. Are we going to do outreach to the homeless and the street population as he he recommended? I think that that that is very, very important that we include that in this. Would you be open to a friendly amendment to do that? Oh, sure, absolutely. I think. Kelly, are we doing that at this point or I mean, I know it's. Kind of new. I don't. Yeah. Currently we have not been doing that as much, but I've taken notes on all that came through and we'll be going back to work with our team to address this, as well as with the other partners who are in the room that we've discussed and other partners in the community. Yes, absolutely. And thank you, Councilmember Austin. Thank you, Kelly. Thank you. With that, please take a vote.