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Source: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/can...html?id=583041
Epidemic response better for poultry than people: report
Sharon Kirkey, Canwest News Service Published: Thursday, June 12, 2008
If a deadly epidemic were to hit tomorrow, poultry would be better protected than people under federal laws, Canada's top medical journal warns.
The Canadian Medical Association Journals calls it a "national embarrassment" that 12 of the 13 provinces and territories are under no obligation to share information with the federal government or the rest of Canada during a disease outbreak.
In an editorial released ahead of print Thursday, the journal says a massive epidemic or pandemic "could kill tens, or hundreds of thousands of Canadians within weeks or months."
Yet the federal government and provinces can't agree on how they would share crucial information, a situation the journal says has reached a "ridiculous, potentially tragic, level."
"If there is another epidemic of a SARS kind or an avian influenza kind, Canada is, among developed countries, probably the worst prepared," says Amir Attaran, Canada Research Chair in law, population health and global development policy at the University of Ottawa and lead author of the editorial.
"And it's for bureaucratic reasons. It's not that our scientists are incompetent, it's not that our doctors can't do great things or our hospitals are poorly equipped. It's simply for the fact that, in an emergency, time equals lives."
Epidemics spread exponentially, he says. The sooner outbreaks are controlled, the fewer who will get sick or die.
But Mr. Attaran says time was wasted during the SARS crisis that killed 43 in Toronto because Ontario and the federal government haggled over access to information "about where the sick individuals were and how they acquired the disease, in order to co-ordinate whether the response to those individual outbreaks was the right one."
"If you don't have information sharing as a matter of course, you're going to waste time and while you're wasting time people are dying."
The World Health Organization hit Toronto with a travel advisory during SARS, not because the city had an "unparalleled number of SARS cases," the editorial says --- Singapore had about equal numbers -- "but because Ontario was coy about informing Ottawa" about how far the disease had spread in the community and hospitals.
That lack of information flow is threatening Canada's ability to comply with new international regulations designed to protect against the global spread of a public health emergency such as SARS or a flu outbreak, another article released by the journal Thursday warns.
Canada's auditor general first highlighted the problem in 1999, and again in Sheila Fraser's most recent report in May. Only Ontario, "humbled by the SARS experience," has a data-sharing agreement with Ottawa, the CMAJ says.
"At that rate, it'll take us sometime until the next century before all the provinces are signed up," Mr. Attaran said in an interview.
If a chicken carrying bird flu were found tomorrow, "Ottawa would be ready," the journal says. Under the Health of Animals Act, the federal government has laws to inspect farms, quarantine birds, force provinces to share information, co-ordinate infection control and "punish anyone concealing the epidemic."
"But if a human carrying avian influenza were found, too bad," the journal says. In the case of infectious disease outbreaks in humans, the Public Health Agency relies on provinces to volunteer the information.
"It's literally true that if a bird flu crisis hits tomorrow, Ottawa is better prepared to defend the geese than it is to defend Canadians," Mr. Attaran says. "You'd rather be a Canadian goose than a Canadian person in a bird flu outbreak, it's embarrassing to say."
Federal Health Minister Tony Clement's office said in a statement that his officials are working with the provinces and territories to finalize agreements on data-sharing of infectious diseases.
"While the Public Health Agency of Canada is currently getting much of the information it requests without a formal agreement, it must rely on informal arrangements and the good will of the provinces," the statement said.
skirkey@canwest.com
Epidemic response better for poultry than people: report
Sharon Kirkey, Canwest News Service Published: Thursday, June 12, 2008
If a deadly epidemic were to hit tomorrow, poultry would be better protected than people under federal laws, Canada's top medical journal warns.
The Canadian Medical Association Journals calls it a "national embarrassment" that 12 of the 13 provinces and territories are under no obligation to share information with the federal government or the rest of Canada during a disease outbreak.
In an editorial released ahead of print Thursday, the journal says a massive epidemic or pandemic "could kill tens, or hundreds of thousands of Canadians within weeks or months."
Yet the federal government and provinces can't agree on how they would share crucial information, a situation the journal says has reached a "ridiculous, potentially tragic, level."
"If there is another epidemic of a SARS kind or an avian influenza kind, Canada is, among developed countries, probably the worst prepared," says Amir Attaran, Canada Research Chair in law, population health and global development policy at the University of Ottawa and lead author of the editorial.
"And it's for bureaucratic reasons. It's not that our scientists are incompetent, it's not that our doctors can't do great things or our hospitals are poorly equipped. It's simply for the fact that, in an emergency, time equals lives."
Epidemics spread exponentially, he says. The sooner outbreaks are controlled, the fewer who will get sick or die.
But Mr. Attaran says time was wasted during the SARS crisis that killed 43 in Toronto because Ontario and the federal government haggled over access to information "about where the sick individuals were and how they acquired the disease, in order to co-ordinate whether the response to those individual outbreaks was the right one."
"If you don't have information sharing as a matter of course, you're going to waste time and while you're wasting time people are dying."
The World Health Organization hit Toronto with a travel advisory during SARS, not because the city had an "unparalleled number of SARS cases," the editorial says --- Singapore had about equal numbers -- "but because Ontario was coy about informing Ottawa" about how far the disease had spread in the community and hospitals.
That lack of information flow is threatening Canada's ability to comply with new international regulations designed to protect against the global spread of a public health emergency such as SARS or a flu outbreak, another article released by the journal Thursday warns.
Canada's auditor general first highlighted the problem in 1999, and again in Sheila Fraser's most recent report in May. Only Ontario, "humbled by the SARS experience," has a data-sharing agreement with Ottawa, the CMAJ says.
"At that rate, it'll take us sometime until the next century before all the provinces are signed up," Mr. Attaran said in an interview.
If a chicken carrying bird flu were found tomorrow, "Ottawa would be ready," the journal says. Under the Health of Animals Act, the federal government has laws to inspect farms, quarantine birds, force provinces to share information, co-ordinate infection control and "punish anyone concealing the epidemic."
"But if a human carrying avian influenza were found, too bad," the journal says. In the case of infectious disease outbreaks in humans, the Public Health Agency relies on provinces to volunteer the information.
"It's literally true that if a bird flu crisis hits tomorrow, Ottawa is better prepared to defend the geese than it is to defend Canadians," Mr. Attaran says. "You'd rather be a Canadian goose than a Canadian person in a bird flu outbreak, it's embarrassing to say."
Federal Health Minister Tony Clement's office said in a statement that his officials are working with the provinces and territories to finalize agreements on data-sharing of infectious diseases.
"While the Public Health Agency of Canada is currently getting much of the information it requests without a formal agreement, it must rely on informal arrangements and the good will of the provinces," the statement said.
skirkey@canwest.com