Are We Ready For ‘Swine Flu’?

LAST month’s outbreak of ‘Swine Flu’ (H1N1) in Mexico is the latest event in the challenge of responding to increasing zoonotic diseases affecting food workers who are in the frontline. Zoonotic diseases are those that are transmissible from animals/birds to humans. Intensive factory farming of animals has exacerbated this problem. It is becoming clear where it came from – most likely a giant pig factory farm run by an American multinational corporation in Veracruz, Mexico.

These factory farms are disgusting and dangerous, and they’re rapidly multiplying. Thousands of pigs are brutally crammed into dirty warehouses and sprayed with a cocktail of drugs – posing a health risk to more than just our food – they and their manure lagoons create the perfect conditions to breed dangerous new viruses like swine flu.
Avian Flu or more popularly known as ‘Bird Flu’ (H5N1) was a major concern worldwide. The serious outbreak of a zoonotic disease is travelling at jet speed around the world inflicting global fatal harm and bringing global tourism as well as economic activities in general to a grinding massive slowdown. To date, 27 deaths have been officially confirmed from the new H1N1 flu strain, 26 in Mexico and one in the United States, although more than 100 are suspected to have died from the infection. Its global spread has kept alive fears of a possible pandemic, although scientists say this strain does not appear to be more deadly than seasonal flu.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has raised its alert level to Phase 4 (out of 6), ‘meaning there is sustained human-to-human transmission of the virus causing outbreaks in at least one country,’ according to the Associated Press. ‘Putting an alert at Phases 4 or 5 signals that the virus is becoming increasingly adept at spreading among humans,’ said AP. ‘That move could [also] lead governments to set trade, travel, and other restrictions aimed at limiting its spread.’
Has Namibia put any measures in place to ensure that the influenza A (H1N1) outbreak does not reach our shores? As part of our outbreak preparedness and readiness, have we deployed outbreak any response teams in all ports of entry? Is the airport on alert and do we have passive screening of incoming passengers no matter the nationality? Have we learnt from the past episodes of Avian Flu and SARS outbreaks in Asia which has demonstrated the destructiveness for the tourism industry?

Cuana Angula
Johannesburg
Note: The WHO alert level is now at 5. – Newsdesk