Captains and fish managers at ports, air cargo handling centres and transport rail/land/sea/air nodes, must prepare their health security readiness after the world’s governments decided to begin immediate implementation of influenza-related parts of the new International Health Regulations (IHR).
The decision, reports Peter O’Neill, came on the last day of the annual World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva. Concern that recent avian flu deaths in Indonesia may be human-to-human is certainly one reason why the World Health Organization (WHO) got the governments to move so fast at the end of May. WHO said health ministers and directors general of health were taking into account “the threat of a human influenza pandemic”.
World Fishing will give a detailed breakdown next month of what preventive action should be taken now, so that the industry is not caught off guard. It is even more important for the fishing sector, often operating out of small harbours which might have to cope with an outbreak, with none of the attendant facilities of the giant container ports. The loss to the world fishing industry, particularly for high-value air cargo fish, of the 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS outbreak has been estimated at billions. Fish sales collapsed as restaurants lost customers across the globe from Hong Kong to North America as people stayed at home.
WHO will also have cash and technical advice available for poor countries who have weak infrastructure. Ports which fail to prepare could be liable for compensation claims if an outbreak occurs (fish and poultry handlers are often the same workers) and spreads outside their area of control.
