Planning exercise tests ability of New Brunswick to respond to Ebola

Canada’s senior public health officer met Friday with his New Brunswick counterpart to launch a planning exercise intended to test the province’s response in the event of an Ebola case in the province.

The federal government said Friday’s exercise was the most recent in a series of meetings and joint exercises, between Canada’s Ebola virus disease (EVD) Rapid Response Team (RRT) and provincial and territorial officials, “to further strengthen and refine Canada’s domestic planning and coordination efforts.”

The planning exercise was launched, in a meeting between Dr. Gregory Taylor, Canada’s chief public health officer, along with New Brunswick health minister Victor Boudreau and Dr. Eilish Cleary, the province’s chief medical officer of health.

That exercise “tested various components of the province’s public health response including communication, biosafety, infection prevention and control, laboratory response, epidemiology and surveillance, and emergency operations in the event of an EVD case in the province,” the federal government stated.

The federal RRTs “are comprised of Public Health Agency experts who are ready to deploy upon request and specifically equipped to provide surge capacity, additional resources and complementary expertise to provincial/territorial and local health authorities if a case of Ebola occurs in Canada.”

The class of insurance “most tangibly affected by a pandemic such as Ebola,” is business interruption, London-based broker Miller Insurance Services LLP told Canadian Underwriter last November. At the time, a Toronto-based client executive and producer for BFL Canada Risk and Insurance Services Inc. – Susan Delicata – told Canadian Underwriter that coverage is available for Ebola “in a limited form,” but the disease has to be named in the policy.

Willis North America Inc. advised its clients last year that it is not the intent of a property insurance policy to cover the Ebola virus, though some carriers have separate insurance policies or endorsements covering risks such as interruption by communicable disease, interruption by infectious or contagious disease and mandatory closure for pandemic disease.

“Containing the spread of an infectious disease like Ebola requires collaboration across all levels of government and the health sector,” the federal government stated in a press release Friday. “Given that operational needs in each provincial and territorial jurisdiction may differ, planning exercises are an important component to ensuring mutual preparedness.”

Federal Health Minister Rona Ambrose stated in the release: “While we have not had an Ebola case we must be prepared, and we will continue to take all steps necessary to protect Canadians and ensure we are able to respond quickly and effectively.”