Malaysia launches health plan to tackle threat of bird flu pandemic

Star: PUTRAJAYA: Malaysian health authorities announced a blueprint Monday to prepare hospitals and emergency services nationwide to deal with a possible bird flu human pandemic.
The National Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Plan is meant to coordinate measures such as the treatment of patients, culling of livestock and temporary closures of public facilities to help the country in the event of a pandemic.
"As the world has been given the unprecedented warning of a possible pandemic, we must seize the opportunity to prepare ourselves," Health Minister Chua Soi Lek told officials and foreign diplomats while launching the plan.
Malaysia is currently stockpiling vaccines and protective equipment, training medical workers and upgrading hospital and laboratory facilities to ensure its health care system won't be overloaded if a pandemic strikes, Chua said.
The Cabinet has allocated 60.4 million ringgit (US$15.8 million; euro13.4 million) annually for such efforts, some of which will be tried out in a nationwide drill by next month to simulate how the country would respond to a pandemic.
The exercise, which will be modeled after similar ones conducted in Australia, Canada and the United States, will "test whether Malaysian staff can respond to the threat as outlined in this plan," Chua said.
"There is strong political commitment to ensure that we will be transparent and fully prepared," Chua said.
The pandemic plan provides for aggressive animal outbreak containment which includes the slaughter of infected livestock and the quarantine of farms and other locations.
Immigration exit and entry requirements for travelers would be tightened if human-to-human transmission occurs.
Schools, swimming pools and other public places might be closed while public gatherings could be banned.
However, the plan is also meant to ensure that the supply of food, water, electricity, communication and sanitation service won't be disrupted while police, firefighting and transport systems will also be maintained.
Malaysia declared itself free of bird flu in January 2005, more than six weeks after its last infection was detected in villages in the northeastern Kelantan state.
The disease was discovered there in August 2004 in fighting cocks smuggled from neighbouring Thailand.