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http://www.wndu.com/localnews/headlines/59270127.html

Michigan City company puts together swine flu preparedness kit
“You have to start thinking about it now. If you wait these products are not going to be available.”
Posted: 6:00 PM Sep 14, 2009
Reporter: Ryan Famuliner
Email Address: ryan.famuliner@wndu.com
Michigan City company puts together swine flu preparedness kit

As flu season grows closer and closer, making sure your family is prepared should be a priority.

Especially with concerns about the swine flu, which the White House says could infect up to half of Americans this year.

One Michigan City company is trying to fill that niche. Environmental Safety Products, Inc. has put together a swine flu preparedness kit that aims to help on the prevention side.

While the products are some of the same things the Center for Disease Control and Prevention recommends having around every year, there's expected to be a lot more demand for them this flu season.

ESP supplies local companies with a wide variety of sanitary and protective products. Lately, they’ve noticed a huge jump in demand, as they were trying to re-stock their shelves.

“We were having a hard time buying respirators for our industrial accounts… So at that point we put two and two together. It kind of made sense to put together our own kit and start selling them to people who need them,” said Mike Olling with ESP.

The N95 respirators, which have been recommended by the Institute of Medicine for H1N1 prevention, are one of the more unique items that come in the kit.

The other items are more common; Latex or nitrile gloves can be of use in high-contact areas, individually wrapped hand wipes are a portable way to keep your hands clean, and hand sanitizer has become a must have at schools, at work, and at home.

“This is the supply of the kits we have in stock right we've pre-made them understand they can go pretty quick,” Olling said as he stood in the store room.

The kits just went on sale on the company's website over the weekend, and Olling says while many of these products are still available at stores individually, that may not be true once the swine flu spreads.

“You have to start thinking about it now. If you wait these products are not going to be available,” Olling said.

These kits are $19.95 through ESP’s website. Meantime, the government's flu website also has an idea of how to put together your own kit, and has other prevention tips. The links to both those sites are listed below.