Maxi-Vac: planning mass smallpox vaccination clinics.

To help emergency response planners prepare for conducting mass smallpox vaccination clinics, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers developed the Maxi-Vac software (available free from http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/smallpox/vaccination/maxi-vac/index.asp); it assists in designing a mass vaccination clinic with up to 9 separate stations. Users select clinic characteristics that best represent their intended setup, and the software displays the optimal placement of staff to vaccinate the maximum number of people possible. For example, for a clinic that will have 3 physicians, 30 nurses, and 10 other staff members available per 12-hour shift, Maxi-Vac shows how these staff members can best be deployed, and it projects the maximum number of persons who can be vaccinated at 8,245 per 24-hour period. Users can alter the number of available staff, which will probably be the greatest limiting factor, to determine the impact on the number of persons vaccinated per 24-hour period.