Highly pathogenic influenzavirus A (H5N1)

[phd]

Although H5N1 has not yet developed the ability to spread easily from human to human - the health 'experts' tell us that this probably will occur at sometime within the foreseeable future and that a human flu pandemic will follow. The World Health Organisation is closely monitoring the recent cluster of deaths caused by the virus in North Sumatra and is considering whether to raise the pandemic alert phase from 3 to 4. It has not yet done so.

The impact of such a pandemic on the air transport industry worldwide is difficult to predict - but it could be very significant both in human and financial terms. This therefore seems an appropriate topic for debate - no doubt the thread will be moved if I have opened it in the wrong forum.

I would like to pose two questions. (1) What steps do you think airlines, airports, governments and individuals should be taking to plan for and respond to the threat? (2) How do you think these organisations and people will respond in a developing pandemic if the infection rates and mortality rates prove to be high?

[Few Cloudy]

Well - once it gets to the human stage all hell will be let loose - but we should take some precautions first:

We should of course avoid serving chicken on board, which will have a huge impact on catering economics, except for JAL.

Also any bird strike victims should be reported but not touched.

Passengers smuggling fowls from the Far East should be given a red card and banned in future.

Any feathering of the nest by Top Management should be reported to WHO.

A Pheasant Plucker.

[PAXboy]

Very good Few Cloudy!! My guess is that no planning by carriers will take place. This is because no one has any idea what is going to happen and the liklihood that any planning will be made redundant in a split second. But also, because the governments of each country will place their own restrictions on movements of people and animals and these will superseed any planning by companies.

If a pandemic gets under way, then each company will simply be cancelling services as their staff become affected by it. This is as much for ground crew, as it is for operation crew. Also, naturally, bookings will fall away and No-Shows increase as people decide that they do not want to be grouped with numerous other people in the same place. This same natural reaction will affect theatres, concerts and cinemas.

Considerable quantities of money will be lost around the world and, after the pandemic is over, the airline business will be in crisis. Firstly, because many people will not want to travel due to fear of infection but many staff and crew will also have died and so many flights will not be able to operate. All airports and ATCs will, of course, also have lost many staff and some operations may be cancelled as they are not able to staff all shifts to the required standard.

Preparation for a pandemic? I doubt that it can be done and I expect that it will not be done.

[Rainboe]

Sell KFC, buy MacDonalds!

I'm not sure what 'debate' one can have. It either jumps species or it doesn't. Remember this thing has been around since time immemorial. Occasionally it makes the jump. Although it is apparent now, there is no more reason it should become readily transmissable between humans now than in 50 years time. Those infected now have been more 'intimate' with birds than is advisable at the moment- ie living closely with them, ingesting feathers/dust/breath/raw or uncooked body parts. I believe a Vietnamese delicacy is raw duck blood soup. I'm refraining panic buying fake Tamiflu on the internet for now!

Paxboy- right. Preparation? When nobody knew how serious and transmissable AIDS was, the world couldn't put into place a testing/isolation plan to protect us from what could have been a terrible plague. Because of 'human rights' with the wife of a certain British Prime Minister championing peoples' right to free movement (and infection of others), no politician will do a thing!

[YesTAM]

If you care to bother to look at your country's bird flu response plan you will find that precautions will be taken and you will be part of the precautions.

I note from reading the Australian plan that:

(1) Aircraft will no longer be given pratique by exception. Today you are only required to report if you have a sick passenger. During a pandemic you will be required to certify that you have no sick on board.

(2) Your aircraft will carry N95 masks and gloves for cabin crew in case someone gets sick on board. Your crew will be required to move said sick person to the least infectious location on the aircraft.

(3) There will be health cards issued for pax completion - see the Australian plan for an example (Dept. of Health Website).

(4) There will be an airport nurse. Anyone with symptoms or a dodgy health card will have to front the nurse (in mask and gown).

(5) There will be staff with thermal imaging equipment. Anyone with a fever will have to front the nurse.

(6) There will also be outbound screening in the same manner to try and prevent an infected pax from travelling.

I assume your airlines and airports are already fully briefed on this matter.

[PAXboy]

Excellent post YesTAM. That is what I meant by saying that the govt planning will outweigh any internal planning.

One would expect that any company has discussed this kind of event but the setting up of emergency procedures would be standard for any disaster that the company might encounter. This would run from bombs and earthquakes, through local seasonal illness to pandemic. As long as the company has basic emergency procedures and committees ready - then they can jump in and start to assess the actual problems being encountered at the time.

[wrenchbender]

Air Canada was strongly affected by the SARS outbreak, and is quite concerned about a possible pandemic.

"Air Canada has established an Avian Influenza/Pandemic Influenza Task Force involving medical, operational, commercial and corporate groups to address the potential of an influenza pandemic. This group has been tasked with looking at every aspect of our operation as well as our existing health and safety procedures to ensure we are as prepared as is possible."

[no sig]

Not wishing to be a scare monger, but if you are living in country where the medical system has limited resource then be prepared to take care of yourself should human to human transmission be confirmed and the WHO raise their threat level, i.e. consider having available to yourself an adeqaute supply of the recommended treatments, i.e. Tamiflu. Where I am, after the last scare, the availability of Tamiflu was immediately bought out and the local drug depots were out of stock. And remember that doesn't mean just one course of treatment (10 tablets), you may need double that as the doesage for a H5N1 strain is not yet established with any accuracy. Also, those caring for you will need the drug as Prophalaxysis.

[J.O.]

If it comes to an epidemic level, international travel will be severely curtailed as the countries that have yet to become infected move to close their borders to people from those that have. In other words, if Indonesia (for example) reaches the epidemic level, expect Garuda flights to be banned by much of the rest of the world. So if your country happens to become infected, expect your airlines to be restricted from operating outside your borders. The hit will be significant and could set back international travel by 50 years. :bored:

[ThomasT]

All this scare mongering hype is simply to sell you useles tamiflu.

[PAXboy]

Thomas T whether or not people buy a drug that is unlikly to have any effect on H5N1 is one thing but - that the planet will have another pandemic is without doubt. History tells us of such events and the last one was rather nasty.

From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu_epidemic)
The Spanish Flu Pandemic, also known as La Grippe Espagnole, La Pesadilla, or the 1918 flu, was a pandemic caused by an unusually severe and deadly strain of the subtype H1N1 of the species Influenza A virus. In that pandemic, 50 million to 100 million people worldwide were killed during about a year in 1918 and 1919.

The Allies of World War I called it the "Spanish Flu". This was mainly because the pandemic received greater press attention in Spain than in the rest of the world, as Spain was not involved in the war and there was no wartime censorship in Spain.

Given that we now have the ability to move such a virus around the world considerably faster than last time, and that the planet as more people than last time ... the effects are going to be big and bad. Which is why I say that making preparations is almost pointless. Of course govts and companies must make what plans they can but when the next pandemic virus arrives, the people making tamiflu will be dying just as fast as those buying it. Any monies the company and individuals may have made from selling it now will be irrelevant to the fact of death! That might please Thomas T, assuming that he survives! This next pandemic might not be H5N1 and might not be for another 50 years but no person working in this field doubts that there wil be such an event.

[no sig]

Tamiflu is best we have at present so don't knock the drug which might just give you the edge should you need it. Look at Turkey's outbreak, 21 or confirmed H5n1 infected, yet only 4 deaths as I recall. Intervention was quite rapid and the early use of the drug may have help prevent other deaths.

[Farrell]

Population control..........

either by Mother Nature, or a shadow government.

[ORAC]

Sunday 28th May (PA): Bird flu drug makers put on alert

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has asked the maker of the anti-bird flu drug Tamiflu to ready the global stockpile. Their request came after human-to-human transmission was suspected in a family cluster in Indonesia..

"We have no intention of shipping that stockpile," cautioned Dick Thompson, a WHO spokesman. "We see this as a practice run."