Preparing for a crisis is essential

A large segment of the Canadian business sector is ill-prepared to manage the mass worker fallout that would occur in the event of a major health disaster, according to a leading emergency response expert.

  Sean Kaufman, a former researcher for the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, said an ensuing pandemic like the Avian Flu could pose unprecedented financial costs to Canada's economy. He said companies, big and small, are not focusing their response strategies in the right direction. 

 "We haven't yet challenged businesses to focus on workforce resiliency, how to prepare a workforce for crisis situations and the impact a crisis can have on business and whether or not a business makes it," said Kaufman, who was the key not speaker at a recent international business and health summit in Winnipeg.
 
Kaufmanm, who specializes in training employees at high-containment labs, worked with the CDC after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the subsequent anthrax attacks and the 2003 SARS crisis. He is now chief public health officer with Atlanta-based Go2Gear Inc.
  He said one of the first and most important steps the business community must take is to combat fear. 

  "If you develop any plan that does not address fear or risk perception, you have an enormous gap." 

  The Asian H5N1 flu strain is believed to have claimed more than 100 lives around the world - humans who were in close contact with infected domestic poultry. 

  The strain has shown no sign of being easily transmitted between humans, although there are concerns it or another disease could mutate into a contagious strain and trigger a pandemic. 

 Federal health officials have said preparing for its arrival is a necessary precaution and plans include lessons learned from the SARS respiratory crisis.
 On the business front, several recent studies have tried to put a dollar figure on any pandemic fallout. 

 Health experts believe a flu pandemic is eminent, and would last a year to 18 months and spreading through the population in a series of two or three waves. Aggressive first measures such as quarantines will halt the disease somewhat, then it will spread further since some people will become infected and yet won't show any symptoms for a week or so. These people will infect others and the pandemic will spread again.
 
  Dr. Marcia Johnson, deputy medical officer of health for Capital Health, believes the Edmonton region is on the right track in preparing for a pandemic. The measures now in place are part of an "all-hazards" approach aimed at dealing with any emergency such as an explosion or tornado. " Preparing for a pandemic is very challenging," Dr. Johnson says.
 “If you're ready for that, you're ready for almost anything." That said, there are always improvements that can be made. "We feel in emergency preparedness that we will never be done. We honestly believe we're in a better state of readiness than we have ever been, but we know we have a lot of work to do."
 
While anti-viral medication is currently available, a vaccine against the illness will not be available at the first sign of an outbreak. Only after the new strain has been identified can laboratories start the slow work of developing and then mass-producing vaccines  a process that could take anywhere from two to four months. Quarantines will be one of the first measures used by health authorities to deal with the initial outbreak of a flu pandemic, but at a certain point those measures won't be effective and a pandemic will spread to the general public.WSN