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Businesses Need to Plan for Influenza Pandemic, Expert Tells Conference

Posted on: Monday, 27 February 2006, 21:00 CST

By STEVE MERTL

RICHMOND, B.C. (CP) - Wash your hands, get a shot, say home if you're sick. And decide who's essential to run your business if an influenza pandemic strikes.

One of Canada's foremost experts on an long-expected pandemic says businesses should have contingency plans in case the illness reaches the country. Dr. Danuta Skowronski, an epidemiologist at the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, told a disaster preparedness conference Monday that minimizing the impact of an influenza pandemic, at least initially, will be largely in the hands of individuals and businesses.

It will take months for scientists to develop a vaccine to combat any human variant of the H5N1 avian influenza now sweeping through wild and domestic bird populations in Asia, Africa and Europe, she said.

That means society will have to rely on what she called 19th-century techniques to try to contain the disease.

"I think emphasizing and rehearsing basic hygiene measures like hand-washing, cough etiquette, disposal of tissues, staying away if you're ill, protecting each other basically in the workplace, is very important," she said in an interview.

"I think having contingency plans at the workplace, identifying who the essential employees are and cross training to ensure that they're covered is very important."

Vaccination against existing influenza strains doesn't confer protection in the event of a pandemic based on H5N1, Skowronski told the conference, organized by the Emergency Preparedness for Industry and Commerce Council. But it does give health planners an idea of how many people will need shots in the event of an outbreak, and where they are.

Skowronski told delegates she has no opinion about the stockpiling of anti-viral drugs such as Tamiflu. It's a personal decision for individuals and a judgment call for businesses.

But she pointed out anti-virals have a limited shelf-life and although they can reduce the effect of the illness once someone is infected, if taken promptly, to prevent the disease they would have to be taken daily for the duration of a pandemic, which could be weeks.

The H5N1 bird flu has infected 173 people worldwide, of which 93 have died. That's a high death rate for influenza, Skowronski said, but pointed out this stain of the disease is not easily transmitted to humans.

That could change if the virus, which normally infects the guts of birds, mutates to infect human respiratory tracts the way other flu strains do.

Scientists theorize a pandemic could hit Canada within three months of a human strain being identified, with multiple waves expected.

Skowronski said predicted infection rates in Canada are between 15 and 35 per cent. Influenza historically has a low death rate - the 1918 pandemic that killed at least 50 million people globally was an aberration - and most people will recover without any medical intervention and only a tiny fraction would need hospital care, she said.

Between 11,000 and 58,000 Canadians could die during a pandemic, she said, but pointed out influenza now kills 4,000-8,000 annually.

The real effect will be in the economic dislocation caused by absent workers and reduced productivity, currently estimated at more than $1 billion, said Skowronski.

Conference organizer Don Bindon, a former emergency planner with the RCMP, echoed Skowronski's assertion that all businesses need to take responsibility for being prepared for disasters, be it a pandemic, earthquake or flood.

"One of the most difficult questions actually is not 'what are we doing?,' it's what portions of our business can we actually not do for a while, while we concentrate on the portions of the business that we actually need?" he said.

Source: Canadian Press

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