Snowy Owl
Retired in 2010, In Memoriam
Inter-Government Response to Future Global Health Crisis
http://www.embassymag.ca/html/index.php?display=story&full_path=/2007/march/28/inter/
Canada, the U.S. and Mexico are working on a strategy to deal with a pandemic that would keep the borders open and harmonize information.
Canada, the U.S. and Mexico are working on a strategy to deal with a pandemic that would keep the borders open and harmonize information.
Co-ordination between different countries has been identified as a key element to the successful response to a pandemic, which is why Canada for the past year has been working with the United States and Mexico to develop an integrated strategy that aims to complement national response plans and goes further by facilitating information sharing between all three countries prior to an outbreak.
The final draft of the North American Avian and Pandemic Influenza Plan (NAAPIP) is expected to be presented to all three governments for approval this year. The plan will address emergency co-ordination, establish communication plans between the various governments as well as how to disseminate information to the public, deal border and transportation issues, and how to protect infrastructure and minimize the impact of an outbreak.
Dr. Arlene King, director general of pandemic preparedness at the Public Health Agency of Canada, says, traditionally, emergency response plans have been local in nature and rarely, if ever, been developed between governments.
"[The emergency management sector has] been dealing largely with emergencies like earthquakes, floods and other issues that have been mostly locally-based and to which we provide ballast and support," she says.
"But a pandemic will be a global event and a national event. And a pandemic will be more than a health emergency. It will be a general emergency. Therefore we have to line up our paradigms and line up our ways of thinking to make sure we have a co-ordinated inter- and intra-government response. So that really is the current frontier we're working on right now."
There is no question that if a true outbreak occurs, it will spread to Canada and the rest of North America. And considering the way in which all three countries are interlinked economically, all three countries know that it is in their best interest to work together not only to detect and try to prevent or slow the spread of disease to the continent, but also understand and co-ordinate responses.
Dr. King says the NAAPIP includes such provisions as harmonizing approaches to surveillance and monitoring of influenza in North America and sharing virus samples, and that much of the plan?which is constantly evolving?deals with the sharing of information.
"And then there's the whole issue of having liaisons between countries so that we understand each other's systems in advance of the event," she says.
"Don't think you're going to be developing relationships once the emergency occurs. You have to be developing them right now. So a lot of what we're doing right now is building those relationships and understanding what everyone's role is, and respecting that we all have unique roles to play in the event of a pandemic."
'Infectious Diseases Know No Borders'
Dr. King says North American pandemic preparedness planning started several years ago and there is a "pretty worn path beaten between here, Washington and Mexico."
The initial plan is to monitor the disease in its country of origin and try to prevent it from spreading. In the event of an outbreak, border security measures will be implemented, which would include passenger screening and other steps to try to at least slow the disease down.
"It will come to Canada. Make no mistake," she says. "We know from SARS that infectious diseases know no borders. And we know that whatever comes into North America is immediately our problem, regardless of which country it comes into."
Once into the throes of a pandemic, however, those border security measures will be essentially useless.
"Our basic premise is borders should remain open," Dr. King says.
"The mainstay of our response, during an actual pandemic, will be to tell people to stay home when they are sick, telling them to wash their hands, telling them to cover their mouth when they cough or sneeze, wash down surfaces," she adds. "One of the key measures that will potentially work in terms of slowing a pandemic, once it's a pandemic, will be an effective vaccine, assuming that most people take it and assuming that it works well. That would be an effective intervention for slowing."
Each country will also work together to broadcast information, by working to ensure the same information is broadcast to citizens in each country.
"We will be encouraging people to get their information from Canadian sources, and specifically local information sources, but we know they will also be voraciously consuming the information that will be coming out from other sources as well," Dr. King says. "So we need to get as much homogeneity between our sources of information possible. We have to plan that far ahead and it's important we do that."
Canada has also been heavily funding global efforts to fight pandemics and ensure the world is prepared in the event of an outbreak. Dr. King says Canada is the second largest financier of pandemic programs after the U.S. However, one challenge is getting all countries to buy into the need for a concerted global effort to deal with an outbreak.
"The bigger challenge is the whole co-ordination across governments and intergovernmentally with respect to our pandemic preparedness and response efforts," she says.
"This will be a manageable situation if we all plan."
The final draft of the North American Avian and Pandemic Influenza Plan (NAAPIP) is expected to be presented to all three governments for approval this year. The plan will address emergency co-ordination, establish communication plans between the various governments as well as how to disseminate information to the public, deal border and transportation issues, and how to protect infrastructure and minimize the impact of an outbreak.
Dr. Arlene King, director general of pandemic preparedness at the Public Health Agency of Canada, says, traditionally, emergency response plans have been local in nature and rarely, if ever, been developed between governments.
"[The emergency management sector has] been dealing largely with emergencies like earthquakes, floods and other issues that have been mostly locally-based and to which we provide ballast and support," she says.
"But a pandemic will be a global event and a national event. And a pandemic will be more than a health emergency. It will be a general emergency. Therefore we have to line up our paradigms and line up our ways of thinking to make sure we have a co-ordinated inter- and intra-government response. So that really is the current frontier we're working on right now."
There is no question that if a true outbreak occurs, it will spread to Canada and the rest of North America. And considering the way in which all three countries are interlinked economically, all three countries know that it is in their best interest to work together not only to detect and try to prevent or slow the spread of disease to the continent, but also understand and co-ordinate responses.
Dr. King says the NAAPIP includes such provisions as harmonizing approaches to surveillance and monitoring of influenza in North America and sharing virus samples, and that much of the plan?which is constantly evolving?deals with the sharing of information.
"And then there's the whole issue of having liaisons between countries so that we understand each other's systems in advance of the event," she says.
"Don't think you're going to be developing relationships once the emergency occurs. You have to be developing them right now. So a lot of what we're doing right now is building those relationships and understanding what everyone's role is, and respecting that we all have unique roles to play in the event of a pandemic."
'Infectious Diseases Know No Borders'
Dr. King says North American pandemic preparedness planning started several years ago and there is a "pretty worn path beaten between here, Washington and Mexico."
The initial plan is to monitor the disease in its country of origin and try to prevent it from spreading. In the event of an outbreak, border security measures will be implemented, which would include passenger screening and other steps to try to at least slow the disease down.
"It will come to Canada. Make no mistake," she says. "We know from SARS that infectious diseases know no borders. And we know that whatever comes into North America is immediately our problem, regardless of which country it comes into."
Once into the throes of a pandemic, however, those border security measures will be essentially useless.
"Our basic premise is borders should remain open," Dr. King says.
"The mainstay of our response, during an actual pandemic, will be to tell people to stay home when they are sick, telling them to wash their hands, telling them to cover their mouth when they cough or sneeze, wash down surfaces," she adds. "One of the key measures that will potentially work in terms of slowing a pandemic, once it's a pandemic, will be an effective vaccine, assuming that most people take it and assuming that it works well. That would be an effective intervention for slowing."
Each country will also work together to broadcast information, by working to ensure the same information is broadcast to citizens in each country.
"We will be encouraging people to get their information from Canadian sources, and specifically local information sources, but we know they will also be voraciously consuming the information that will be coming out from other sources as well," Dr. King says. "So we need to get as much homogeneity between our sources of information possible. We have to plan that far ahead and it's important we do that."
Canada has also been heavily funding global efforts to fight pandemics and ensure the world is prepared in the event of an outbreak. Dr. King says Canada is the second largest financier of pandemic programs after the U.S. However, one challenge is getting all countries to buy into the need for a concerted global effort to deal with an outbreak.
"The bigger challenge is the whole co-ordination across governments and intergovernmentally with respect to our pandemic preparedness and response efforts," she says.
"This will be a manageable situation if we all plan."