H5N1: Are You Prepared?

If 25 to 30 percent of your employees were home sick with some version of the avian flu, would you be able to operate your business?

In asking the question regarding a potential avian flu pandemic, John Shutske, professor of Bioproduct and Biosystems Engineering at the University of Minnesota, asks business owners to consider:

• The World Health Organization believes that an avian flu pandemic could affect 25 to 30 percent of the global population and result in a fatality rate of 0.5 to 2.5 percent. 
• Under the best circumstances, a “mild scenario” may result in 2 to 7.4 million deaths worldwide.
• Australian National University estimated that even a mild avian flu pandemic would cost $330 billion, or 0.8 percent of the world’s GDP. An ‘ultra’ scenario could result in 142 million deaths and GDP-related losses of $4.4 trillion.
• History has shown a tendency for pandemics to occur every 30-35 years, the most recent of which have been the Hong Kong Flu in 1968, and the Spanish Influenza during World War I. “Pandemics do happen and will continue to happen throughout history,” Shutske says. “There are some indications that we may be overdue.”

In addition to providing these big picture statistics during his presentation at the Minnesota Structural Pest Management Conference in March, Shutske focused on additional “thoughts” for the food industry. “The food industry is one of those industries that tend to get hit really, really hard,” Shutske says, explaining that key economic impacts generally include the interruption of product supply chains. Shutske cites a Food Industry Pandemic Analysis whitepaper titled An Analysis of the Potential Impact of the H5N1 Avian Flu Virus (August 2005):

• Because of “social distancing,” many would reduce or eliminate restaurant dining.
• In addition to those too unwell to go to work and those staying home to tend them, there would be those who would be too frightened to go to work.
• When products become scarce, who or what system will set the priorities?
• Increased opportunity could be seen in Internet shopping and home delivery services.
• With food retail stores already an outlet for medical services (e.g., strep tests, flu shots), their importance could increase as preferred outlets for medical/prevention supplies, such as masks and gloves.

Despite his dire predictions and recommendations, Shutske’s intention is not to cause fear but to remind the industry that preparation goes a long way toward protection. And with the February outbreak of the H5N1 avian influenza in the United Kingdom affecting its largest turkey producer, the potential was brought even closer to home for U.S. producers, with repercussions from the outbreak impacting their share prices as well.

One of the reasons the food industry faces such major impact is because of the complexity and global integration of our food. It is a “complicated web,” with the typical American consumer eating foods from 20 to 30 different countries each day – think morning coffee from Brazil, chocolate from northern Africa, bananas from South America … and that’s just a start.

While avian flu is an unintentional threat, it is not outside the realm of possibility for terrorist threats or strikes to take on similar aspects, or for terrorists to use any weapon, including intentional introduction of a virus into the food supply.
Outgoing Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson was harshly criticized for publicly stating that a terrorist attack on our food supply would be an easy thing to do, but, in actuality, he was not revealing anything that terrorists didn’t already know, Shutske says. He was, in fact, reacting directly to intelligence information found in the caves of Afghanistan. “The military found a lot of interest [by terrorists] in going after our food supply for both direct contamination of food and secondary targeting of animals for a dramatic ripple effect.”

We don’t tell the story of this complexity enough, Shutske says; most people do not realize how much goes into the food supply chain. Yet as complicated and vulnerable as it is, “it is also fairly resilient,” and the industry should be doing what it can to protect the food chain.

In fact, Shutske says, “the food industry has done a lot of planning over the last two years.” The agriculture/food industry is one of the most prepared, with more than 70 percent of the industry having started the planning process, though less than 20 percent have a written plan in place.

Editor’s note: See “USDA Continues Avian Influenza Preparation and Protection Efforts” on page 6 of this month’s news section for additional information on USDA AI efforts.   QA