Just two years after the SARS outbreak sent Asian economies into intensive care, companies across the region are bracing themselves for the vastly more malignant threat of a bird-flu pandemic.
The SARS crisis of 2003 killed about 800 people out of 8,000 cases and cost regional economies an estimated US$18 billion, according to the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
The hardest hit were Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan and Malaysia. Travel-related industries were the most severely affected by the disease, which was spread by air passengers from China and Hong Kong.
But an avian-flu pandemic has the potential to kill millions worldwide and affect all economic sectors.
The ADB says in the Asia-Pacific region alone, the economic cost of a bird flu pandemic could exceed US$250 billion.
At the moment, the World Health Organization (WHO) says the bird flu threat is still in the third of six phases, with over 60 deaths recorded in Asia since 2003 and rare instances of suspected human-to-human infection.
Phase 6 is the doomsday scenario -- the full pandemic phase with sustained human-to-human infection in the general population.
"Phase 3, where we are now, is kind of the warning phase. It's out there, we know it's out there, we really have to pay attention. We have to plan," said Jeffrey Staples, senior medical adviser to emergency services firm International SOS.
"My guess is that at Phase 5, governments will probably impose international travel restrictions," he said in an interview.
"So what this gives us is a window of opportunity whereby we can consider moving people around in Phase 4," he said, referring to the possibility of relocating expatriate corporate staff out of affected countries.
"Phase 3 is probably too early to move people, but it's not too early to think and to start planning in a holistic way," he said.
With the virus now confirmed to have spread into Europe, companies across Asia are preparing emergency plans for a pandemic which is widely assumed to be only a matter of time.
Contingency measures ranging from free Vitamin C pills for workers and taking poultry off the canteen menu, to costly evacuation plans for expatriate staff and their families are being drafted by companies.
Nestle Malaysia said it was in the process of drafting a bird-flu contingency plan, with guidance from local authorities and its headquarters in Switzerland.
In China, Charles Zhang, public relations manager of Procter and Gamble in Guangzhou Province, said all staff had been urged to "pay attention to their personal health and bird-flu prevention measures."
P&G, which has 5,000 employees in China, 1 percent of them expatriates, is not stockpiling masks or shoe gloves and so far has no alternate plans for transport in case supply chains become bottled up.
There are no evacuation plans at the moment. Neither does the group have any stocks of anti-viral drug Tamiflu because in China, people needed to go to hospitals and get prescriptions from doctors, Zhang said.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
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