Manila, Philippines, 28 March 2007—The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Japanese Government and the World Health Organization (WHO) are to take part in an exercise designed to test their ability to head off the first signs of a human influenza pandemic.
The exercise, known as Panstop 2007, will involve a mock scenario in which Tamiflu and personal protective equipment such as goggles and masks have to be swiftly despatched from an ASEAN-supported stockpile in Singapore to a South-East Asian country where there are signs of a pandemic strain of influenza emerging.
No drugs or other material will actually be moved in the drill, which will be a test of rapid containment, involving risk assessment, communications, and decision-making between the partners. On the ASEAN side, the partners will be ASEAN Member Country Cambodia and the ASEAN Secretariat, as well as the Japan International Cooperation System (JICS), acting as the agent for ASEAN. On the Japanese side, the exercise will involve the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The two-day drill will be facilitated from the WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific in Manila, Philippines, from 2 to 3 April 2007.
Recent outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza (H5N1) have raised concerns that a related human influenza pandemic may occur. These concerns have prompted a search for ways to prevent a pandemic through rapid response and containment strategies. These strategies aim to stop, or at least slow, the spread of pandemic influenza at the source of its emergence in order to minimize disease and deaths worldwide.
The Government of Japan has provided ASEAN with a stockpile of 500 000 courses of Oseltamivir (Tamiflu), plus a large quantity of personal protective equipment. The April exercise will test protocols necessary to move resources from the stockpile to the site in Cambodia of an influenza outbreak that has the potential to create a worldwide human influenza pandemic. In the event that the warning signals of a potential pandemic are detected, the WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific would make the decision to deploy the necessary resources.
"The Panstop exercise will enable ASEAN Member Countries, Japan, WHO, and the ASEAN Secretariat, as well as JICS, to test preparedness and coordination among all parties involved, especially with regard to the timely delivery of the Tamiflu courses and PPE from the regional stockpile in Singapore in times of an actual pandemic,” said Ong Keng Yong, the Secretary-General of ASEAN. “For our plans to be effective, we must constantly check and review preparations so that they can be applied to the varying circumstances in each affected areas for maximum result.”
Dr Shigeru Omi, WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific, said: “Containment of an influenza pandemic has never been attempted before, and we cannot be sure it will work. But this exercise will provide us with valuable insight into what needs to be done if a crisis situation should emerge.”
Panstop is expected to yield practical information about the efficiency of procedures, discover gaps in planning, build on strengths, and identify opportunities for improvement of rapid response and containment planning.
Although most attention is focused on the current situation with avian influenza (H5N1), a pandemic could be caused by a different influenza virus. Accordingly, the rapid response and containment protocol is expected to evolve as knowledge about avian influenza (H5N1) in particular and influenza, in general, is gained.
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