NYC hospitals gearing up for nightmarish World Cup diseases as fans descend on metro

For the past two years, New York and New Jersey infectious disease experts have been laser focused on prep and training for the upcoming FIFA World Cup games — with 1.2 million visitors from around the world set to watch 48 teams battle it out on the pitch.

Across the US, those numbers skyrocket to 6-7 million.

And with that massive influx of foreign visitors comes the threat of infectious — and sometimes deadly — diseases, including viral hemorrhagic fevers, RSV, tuberculosis, measles, varicella, hepatitis A, typhoid, malaria, SARS, hantavirus and even “high consequence” diseases with high mortality rates, like cholera and Ebola.

And then there are considerations for mass-casusalty events, like shootings.

“The whole health care system in New York City will be on the alert for ALL of these events,” Dr. Vikramjit Mukherjee, chief of critical care at Big Apple’s Bellevue, told Healthbeat New York. “We’re looking at it like a huge migration event.”

In October 2014, Bellevue became famous for treating New York City’s only confirmed Ebola patient, Dr. Craig Spencer.

“Because of what we’ve seen in the last few years — Ebola, Covid, and mpox — we feel that we will be the ones who will be affected first for the next outbreak, and therefore have an additional responsibility of keeping prepared,” Mukherjee said.

The biggest training exercise saw 500 health providers from the New York/New Jersey systems come together four four days to practice emergency air transport with a group of pretend patients suffering from infectious diseases from Toronto, a World Cup host city, to LaGuardia Airport in Queens.

The “patients” were then taken to Bellevue for treatment. The exercise aimed to test workers’ ability to handle a portable bio-containment unit — a device used to isolate and transport patients with highly contagious diseases.

“That was the biggest drill we’ve done, because that involved local, state, federal, and international partners,” said Noel Alicea, a spokesman for Bellevue.

Hackensack Meridian Health in Hackensack, N.J. is the closest Level 1 trauma center to MetLife Stadium, the site of eight games in the tournament, including the July 19 World Cup final.

“We understand the concerns sports fans might have when it comes to attending an event with so many others, from the US and from other countries,” Dr. Gregory Sugalski, an Army veteran and chair of teh hospital’s emergency medicine, told The Post. “But I want to say two words to them: ‘No fear.’

“Our staff at Hackensack Meridian has been training and drilling for two years for this event. We’ve been on the frontline of care for major NFL games for the Giants and Jets, alongside high-profile concerts for celebrities like Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran and Bruce Springsteen, and major entertainment events like Wrestlemania.”

Much of the medical staff will be onsite during the games, ready to swing into action at a moment’s notice, and dozens of ambulances will be revving their engines.

Staff at facilities across New Jersey — including St. Michael’s Medical Center, Cooper University Hospital and Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital — have undergone extensive FEMA-style training too.

The White House created a FIFA task force, led by Andrew Giuliani, the son of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Reporting to the Department of Homeland Security, Andrew Giuliani is “spearheading the federal government’s extensive efforts to ensure that the largest World Cup in history will also be the safest,” according to the task force’s website.

Bellevue’s Mukherjee is more pragmatic.

“Our priority — our laser focus — is toward making sure our health care workers are safe as they go into relatively dangerous zones of high-consequence, infectious diseases . . . that’s what we teach and train every day at the front lines,” he said.