Ottawa organizes global talks on bird flu

World needs rapid response plan, Dosanjh says Experts have long warned pandemic is on its way

OTTAWA— Canada plans to kickstart the global response to a bird flu pandemic that public health experts worry is all but inevitable by holding an international conference next month.

“ We need to have global coordination plans in place” to deal with the threat of avian influenza, Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh said yesterday. He said he expects his counterparts from 30 countries — including the United States and China — as well as international organizations like the United Nations’ public health arm, the European Union and the World Health Organization to attend the conference.

“ We need to have international rapid response plans in place, and we need to know what plans each of us has,” said Dosanjh, adding the gathering is “ unprecedented” in its size and scope. The final details have yet to be worked out, but it’s expected the meeting will take place in the latter part of October, likely in Ottawa or Toronto.

Public Health Minister Carolyn Bennett said other countries can benefit from Canada’s experience in grappling with the crisis provoked by an outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome ( SARS) in 2003, centred in the GTA.

“ This is Canada filling the need for this kind of discussion and for everybody to be on the same page for when a pandemic breaks out,” Bennett said in an interview.

This summer, Bennett, a doctor, visited health officials in regions where cases of avian influenza have been documented in the last year.

“ People realize the planet is really tiny now. The safety and security of Canadians will be assured by doing what we can to keep this a chicken disease and to have the capacity and surveillance built around the world so that the whole planet is safer.” To that end, the government announced it will spend $3 million in each of the next five years to fund public health initiatives in the developing world — and more specifically in Southeast Asia — that are aimed at improving the detection and reporting of outbreaks.

Strains of an influenza virus have been spreading in wild and domestic birds across Asia since 1996. This summer, the virus struck Siberia and Kazakhstan. The Conservative party’s public health critic applauded the decision to host the meeting, but warned that Canada has yet to enact all of the 75 recommendations made by Dr. David Naylor, who chaired a committee that evaluated Canada’s SARS response.

“ Our credibility could still be questioned in some circles. . . . I think it’s great for Canada to host such a meeting, but if we aren’t sufficiently prepared, what does it accomplish?” said MP Carol Skelton ( SaskatoonRosetown- Biggar)

Bennett said the main lesson from SARS is that outbreaks must be identified before diseases cross international boundaries, and that countries must feel they can be truthful in reporting the incidence of avian flu.

“ If they’ve got a problem, let us know, and we can go and help wherever it is,” she said, adding that Canada has undertaken to establish a national public health agency, appoint a chief public health officer and introduce stronger information sharing and communication between jurisdictions — all in answer to Naylor’s 2003 report. The SARS virus, which originated in Asia, brought Ontario’s health system to its knees and strained British Columbia’s health infrastructure. The virus quickly spread as people infected with the illness took international flights.

In all, the World Health Organization estimates nearly 800 people died from SARS- related illness, including 44 people in the GTA. Experts warn the death toll of a global avian influenza outbreak would likely reach the hundreds of thousands.