Niko
Editor, Senior Moderator
Bird flu simulation to test regional readiness
Sunday, August 5 2007
GEORGETOWN, Guyana: Caribbean health officials will hold a large-scale drill in a rural Guyanese community this week to test the region’s readiness against a deadly strain of bird flu.
The drill, which will be conducted from tomorrow to Thursday in a farming town about 50 miles (80 kilometres) south of the capital of Georgetown, will be based on a scenario in which a human case of infection escalates into a pandemic of the H5N1 virus, Guyana’s Health Ministry said in a statement.
“You have to do a real test to see if your systems are working. That is the only way we are going to know if we are ready in Guyana and the Caribbean,” spokesman Shamdeo Persaud said.
Health and agricultural facilities will be tested on their ability to control infections and isolate suspected cases of bird flu in birds and humans, Persaud said.
Emergency planners and epidemiologists from the Dominican Republic, Barbados, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, the Pan American Health Organization and US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will participate in the simulation.
No cases of the deadly strain of bird flu have been reported in the Caribbean.
The H5N1 virus has killed roughly 192 people, largely in Asia, since late 2003, according to the World Health Organisation. Most of the fatalities have been among people who work in close contact with poultry.
(AP)
http://www.newsday.co.tt/news/0,61834.html
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Sunday, August 5 2007
GEORGETOWN, Guyana: Caribbean health officials will hold a large-scale drill in a rural Guyanese community this week to test the region’s readiness against a deadly strain of bird flu.
The drill, which will be conducted from tomorrow to Thursday in a farming town about 50 miles (80 kilometres) south of the capital of Georgetown, will be based on a scenario in which a human case of infection escalates into a pandemic of the H5N1 virus, Guyana’s Health Ministry said in a statement.
“You have to do a real test to see if your systems are working. That is the only way we are going to know if we are ready in Guyana and the Caribbean,” spokesman Shamdeo Persaud said.
Health and agricultural facilities will be tested on their ability to control infections and isolate suspected cases of bird flu in birds and humans, Persaud said.
Emergency planners and epidemiologists from the Dominican Republic, Barbados, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, the Pan American Health Organization and US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will participate in the simulation.
No cases of the deadly strain of bird flu have been reported in the Caribbean.
The H5N1 virus has killed roughly 192 people, largely in Asia, since late 2003, according to the World Health Organisation. Most of the fatalities have been among people who work in close contact with poultry.
(AP)
http://www.newsday.co.tt/news/0,61834.html
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