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Avian 'Flu : Committee Member Irene East Investigates
On behalf of the RDRA I wanted to find out whether and how the relevant local
organisations were prepared in the event of an outbreak of H5N1 virus in Three
Rivers district. DEFRA's advice is well documented on http://www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/diseases/notifiable/disease/ai/index.htm
but I wanted to ascertain how an outbreak would be dealt with locally. I contacted
three organisations: Friends of Stockers Lake, Three Valleys Water Authority
and Hertfordshire County Council.
Discussions:
Ian Watson, Chairman of Friends of Stockers Lake, took the line of least resistance
insisting that all that could be done would be to follow the advice of DEFRA.
I agreed that their advice was obviously crucial. I tried to explain that my
concern was that local organisations needed to be ready for action in the event
of an outbreak as relying wholly on DEFRA was unwise in my view. Overall, he
gave me the impression that I was scaremongering!
Next I spoke to Liz Allen, (01707-268111) Head of Corporate Responsibility at
the Water Authority who are the landowners of much of the areas of concern.
She was happily responsive to my concerns and anxious to confirm that there
were indeed emergency processes in place at a local level between themselves
and the department of Emergency Planning and Environment at Hertfordshire County
Council.
Finally, I contacted Gurmit at Herts County Council who was also pleased to
receive this enquiry and can confirm that the possibility of an outbreak is
being taken seriously. Their website
pages demonstrate this clearly on http://www.hertsdirect.org/yrccouncil/hcc/corpservices/tradingstandards...
They evidently accept that there is a risk and that they have a 'fundamentally
important role in any animal disease situation' and point out that this is led
by the Trading Standards Service Animal Health and Welfare enforcement function
as well as other vital areas such as Emergency Planning and Environment (highways
and access to the countryside).
Conclusion:
I now feel that we may be more reassured that there is planning for emergency
processes which is flexible according to circumstances. Herts County Council
would be happy to have their website
pages referred to on RDRA's own website. Should there be an outbreak locally,
Gurmit has suggested that their information could be passed from them to our
website to inform and reassure residents. I thought this might be a good idea.
(We have asked them to do so.)
Irene East : 26th April 2006
The views on this website are those of the individual contributors, and do not necessarily reflect those of the R&DRA Committee as a whole.