Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Casting Weapons: Canada in the Global village
In tandem with these domestic improvements, canada's global public health position
has also improved in its overall framework. the emergency operation centres in
ottawa and winnipeg are linked to the provinces and territories, the U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services, the cDc, and the wHo. canadian health authorities
have activated these systems several times in recent years, both in the table-top
exercises with the United Kingdom and the United States and in canada's role as
chair of the Global Health Security action Group (GHSaG), a strong indication of
canada's improved global health position. the GHSaG was established to improve
public health security against chemical, biological, or radio-nuclear terrorism as
well as pandemic influenza. It includes the G7 countries, Mexico, the european
commission, and the WHO. Moreover, Canada has become the first country to
negotiate a ten-year contract (beginning in 2001) with a domestic manufacturer
capable of providing a pandemic vaccine for the entire canadian population as soon
as the organism is identified, should the need arise. Canadian health authorities have
created a national antiviral stockpile and committed to the production and testing
of a prototype of H5n1 vaccine that will increase capacity and knowledge of the
efficiency of a vaccine against this strain of avian influenza, or one that is similar.
Furthermore, canada has expanded the
Quarantine Act
, extending the government's
legislative authority to screen, examine, and detain arriving and departing travellers
and conveyances (such as airplanes or cruise ships), including their goods and
cargo, that may be a public health risk to canadians and people world-wide. the act
also includes contemporary public health measures, such as ordering treatments or
other preventive measures. However, as encouraging as these measures are, canada
cannot simply shut its borders to a pandemic. If, for example, the disease renders an
individual infectious for days before symptoms show, it is not possible to contain
all pathogens completely given the availability of 24-hour flights from across the
world. this was made painfully obvious when, in 2007, air travellers were possibly
exposed to a contagious form of tuberculosis when andrew Speaker, infected with
a drug-resistant strain of the disease, flew from Paris to atlanta by way of Prague
and Montreal.
In preparing for pandemics, it is important to understand that information changes
so often that plans must be consistently and constantly revised. the focus may be
on a bird virus, but a pandemic could originate from swine or some other animal
influenza. No one knows what the source of the next one will be, but we know there
will be one, someday. Pandemic preparedness plans should possess the elasticity to
account for different pathogenic sources. the situation may be likened to life in an
earthquake zone. Someone who purchases a condo in Vancouver, for example, will
want to ensure that the building was constructed in conformity to the appropriate
building code and that the city of Vancouver has sufficient rescue vehicles and an
effective earthquake plan with appropriate resources, because that individual will be
aware that Vancouver is in an earthquake zone. However, despite these precautions,
