Truckers organize task force in face of potential bird flu

[Guest Guest]

Truckers task force

 

Threat of avian flu prompts trucking organization to create task force

Jerry W. Jackson

Sentinel Staff Writer

 

March 8, 2006

 

Truckers who haul food and farm products have formed an avian-flu task force to prepare for a possible pandemic that could cripple deliveries nationwide.

 

"We just felt it was time to get ready. These are serious threats," Fletcher Hall, executive director of the American Trucking Association's Agricultural Food Transporters Conference, said Tuesday in a telephone interview.

 

Hall said the conference's more than 500 trucking-company members, including big outfits in Florida, must be prepared for any eventuality if deadly bird flu becomes widely transmissible among humans. So far, it has not spread from Asia and Europe to North or South America, but health authorities and government agencies here are urging industries and families to follow the issue closely and prepare.

 

Trucks and truckers will be vital not only to the delivery of flu vaccines and other medicines, Hall said, but to food for families, restaurants and schools, as well as building materials for the construction industry. "We haul everything from hogs to logs," Hall said of the Alexandria, Va.-based association's members.

 

Trucks, which roam the nation's highways day and night, could be a vector of transmission for flu as well, he said, and that needs to be addressed. Drivers should be among the "priority" recipients of flu vaccines, including a bird-flu vaccine once one becomes available, Hall said.

 

The first doses will be reserved for medical personnel and emergency "first-responders" such as police and firefighters, but truckers should also get high ranking, Hall said.

 

"We already have a shortage of drivers," Hall said. "If we can't get food and vaccines to people, we really will have a problem. We've already learned from experience, after 9-11 and hurricanes, if a major disruption of transportation occurs, then most grocery stores would be empty in three to five days."

 

Jerry W. Jackson can be reached at jwjackson@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5721.

 

 

Copyright © 2006, Orlando Sentinel | Get home delivery - up to 50% off

 

 

[gardnmom]

Good to see some planning done.

[shadypines]

"Trucks, which roam the nation's highways day and night, could be a vector of transmission for flu as well, he said, and that needs to be addressed. Drivers should be among the "priority" recipients of flu vaccines, including a bird-flu vaccine once one becomes available, Hall said."

 

Too bad the vast majority don't realize that preparing

is very necessary. They will rely on the government

when the grocery shelves are bare. We know all that works.