Getting ready for pandemic

Istanbul workers put a chicken into a sack this week as Turkey steps up the culling of birds to try to stop the deadly flu virus spreading. Picture / Reuters

Businesses with a lot of face-to-face customer contact are making progress on contingency plans to deal with a bird flu pandemic.

These businesses - fast food, retailers, bankers, travel - will be the most exposed to such a threat because of need to serve customers.

The growing threat was underlined by last week's analysis of samples of the H5N1 bird flu virus from two victims in Turkey that detected genetic changes, sparking fears the virus may soon be capable of infecting people more easily.

This week the Ministry of Health responded by stepped up its campaign to educate the public about what to do in the event of such a pandemic taking hold.

Last month, the Treasury said it would cost the economy $15 billion to $30 billion in the first year and up to $40 billion over four years.

Several public-sector agencies, including the Treasury, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Economic Development and the Reserve Bank have been working with businesses to prepare the economy for the onset of a pandemic.

Barry Helberg, of the Retailers Association, said food manufacturers and retailers, the two major supermarket chains and industry groups, had met Government officials twice already, including Civil Defence representatives, to discuss the implications of a pandemic for the food sector. They were to meet again soon.

"Some of the issues that have arisen are how long will stocks last in the incidence of a pandemic? Somebody suggested that stocks would only last a couple of days. Whether that's right or wrong I don't know but the fact is it has huge implications for the supply chain; people have got to eat to survive."

Steve Anderson, chief executive of Foodstuffs South Island, one of the three companies that make up the Foodstuffs co-operative, which operates the Pak N Save, New World and Four Square supermarkets, said food supplies should hold up reasonably well in the event of a border closure. "There is a level of stock in the system and one other thing to consider is that we're a net food exporter."

The worst-case scenario for retailers and other businesses was the loss of up to half their staff for considerable periods.

"There's retail issues there, but there's also wholesale issues, getting product from suppliers into our distribution centres and out to our stores."

Anderson added that to maintain workable levels of customer-facing staff, supermarket operators might have to give checkout operators access to the anti-viral drug Tamiflu. "We're talking to the Government about that."

However, he didn't see the drug as a magic bullet. "The key thing is the management of staff illness. The provision of the social distancing and encouraging excellent hygiene and the like are going to be as important as the provision of Tamiflu."

Anderson said reassuring staff they would be safe at work was a key concern.

"People are still going to have to pay their mortgages and yet they will want to hunker down. But if everyone hunkers down, everything shuts down. So we need to give surety and manage the situation to instil confidence in people to come to work."

Foodstuffs was continuing its planning work but was not panicking.

"The last thing we want to be is not prepared if something happens. To tell the truth we should be doing a lot of this planning anyway because of the potential natural disaster scenarios in New Zealand.

"A lot of households need to be looking at this too in terms of stocking of water and basic provisions so they can at least get through the first few days of an issue, whether it's an earthquake, tsunami, a volcanic eruption or a pandemic."

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How they respond

Banks

Leading banks say they have been making their own plans to deal with a bird flu pandemic as well as working on an industry-wide response with the Reserve Bank and the Bankers' Association.

Association chief executive Alan Yates said plans to ensure adequate currency distribution, provision of payment and settlements services, liquidity to the financial system and industry-wide communication were not yet complete but were "a good way down the path". They would be finished within a few weeks and, after that, would be reviewed and undergo fine-tuning.

Fast Food

Fast food companies were giving little away about their bird flu contingency plans.

Vicki Salmon, chief executive of Restaurant Brands, which operates KFC, Pizza Hut and Starbucks, said: "We are closely monitoring the situation offshore and we continue to work closely with YUM! International and the NZ Poultry Industry Association in planning our response should an outbreak of bird flu happen in New Zealand."

Burger chain McDonald's did not return calls.

Auckland International Airport

The airport was working at two levels, general manager of operations David Hansen said. An external, all-of-airport group that included border agencies and the district health board was looking at how the airport would function under scenarios ranging from partial border closure to a quarantine process.

"No one knows quite how this is all going to unfold ... we have to make our plans flexible and able to cope with what we think might be the main situations."

The airport company's other group had an internal focus, dealing with staffing, employment and personal hygiene issues: "The range of things any corporation is going to be working through that really go to the issue of business continuity."

Hansen said the company had put a considerable amount of time into preparing contingency plans but so far had not spent a great deal of money. "The cost comes if the event happens. If, for instance, we ended up with a border closure situation then that's a significant commercial issue for us and all the carriers."

Air New Zealand

The airline had "extensive contingency plans for the possible event of a pandemic", as a large organisation, a significant employer and an airline, spokesman David Jamieson said. The airline was working with Government agencies to refine the plan.

Jamieson was unable to give more details.

Supermarkets

With fewer staff supermarket operators would have to simplify their businesses. "Choice will be significantly affected, we'll be pushing product out rather than having it pulled by customer demand," Foodstuffs South Island chief executive Steve Anderson said.

"We'd look at shutting down non-essential services in supermarkets such as bulk bins and service delis. In the worst-case scenario, the range of products available is likely to be significantly curtailed. "