Fact Sheet: Progress Achieved Since SARS

Mid-March marks five years following the beginning of the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in Canada. There has been significant progress in public health since the outbreak, particularly in the areas of networks and collaboration, planning and emergency preparedness, infectious disease surveillance and response, and laboratory capacity. As a result of following up on virtually all of the Naylor Commission recommendations, Canada is better prepared today to respond to a public health emergency than we were five years ago.

A key accomplishment has been the establishment of the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), and the appointment of this country's first Chief Public Health Officer, Dr. David Butler Jones. Progress is also being achieved through:

Increased Partnerships and Collaboration

• The new structure of the Canadian Public Health Network Council, established in 2004, allows all levels of government have a forum for decision making and policy discussion on key public health issues.
• Since public health challenges do not respect borders, PHAC participates in various international fora, including the World Health Organization, the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) and the Global Health Security Action Group to advance its public health agenda. Canada is also a signatory to the updated International Health Regulations (IHR), which provide a framework for managing public health risks in the international context.

Expanded Planning and Emergency Preparedness

• The Government of Canada committed 1 billion over five years to support Canada's avian and pandemic influenza preparedness efforts.
• Canada's planned response from a health perspective is outlined in the Canadian Pandemic Influenza Plan, revised and republished in late 2006, with input from federal, provincial and territorial governments.
• In terms of our broader emergency response planning, multi-disciplinary Health Emergency Response Teams are set up to be deployed across the country to provide medical surge capacity in the event of a public health crisis.
• The government of Canada has stockpiled antiviral drugs and has secured a domestic vaccine supplier as a part of a multiphase approach to protecting Canadians during an influenza pandemic.

Heightened Infectious Disease Surveillance and Response

• We have enhanced the Global Public Health Intelligence Network, a system to track thousands of media stories in multiple languages in order to quickly identify and monitor potential emerging significant public health events around the world.
• PHAC has developed a cutting edge web-based framework of applications and resources called the Canadian Network for Public Health Intelligence (CNPHI). CNPHI has the capability of gathering information from various sources, such as pharmacy sales, emergency room visits and various other surveillance systems, analysing the information and providing alerts when significant trends emerge.
• We have a Canadian Integrated Outbreak Surveillance Centre (CIOSC), an internet-based alerting system to quickly share information with public health professionals across the country.
• Wildlife surveillance capacity has been increased to improve the ability to detect avian influenza in bird populations.
• We are improving how we provide Canadians with the information they need before and during their international travels. This includes advisories on measures to take to prevent and control illness when travelling.
• A new Quarantine Act, enacted in December, 2006, has strengthened our capacity to reduce and prevent the spread of serious infectious diseases from ill travelers entering and departing Canada. Quarantine Services have been established at airports in Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary, and Vancouver, where 95 per cent of international air travellers arrive or depart Canada.
• We continue to work closely with our partners to increase our capacity to detect trends in influenza and emerging respiratory infections. Canada’s FluWatch and related surveillance systems offers a multi-pronged approach to assessing influenza severity across Canada, vaccine effectiveness and the emergence of antiviral resistance.
• Other ways we have increased our response capacity are by updated infection control guidelines, the provision of lab and prevention and control assistance to provinces and territories during outbreaks, and the rapid deployment of medical teams and mobile hospitals to areas with need for increased surge capacity.

Augmented Laboratory Capacity

• A high-tech operations centre was constructed at the National Microbiology Laboratory (NML). This Centre has the capacity to handle scientific information such as DNA fingerprints, to manage the flow of information and to liaise with other laboratories.
• The NML has significantly increased lab capacity and its ability to respond to outbreaks. Virus sequencing technology has been enhanced and vaccine research capacity strengthened. The NML's mobile lab abilities have also been enhanced, increasing our ability to respond at the site of outbreaks domestically and internationally.
  

Media Inquiries:
Jacinthe Perras
Public Health Agency of Canada
(613) 941-8189