The Canadian Food Inspection Agency will receive almost $200 million over the next five years to help Canada prevent, and if need be respond, to an avian influenza outbreak that public health officials warn could mutate into a virus that could cause a human pandemic.
“A lot of this will go to bolster our front line capacity,” said Jim Clark, national manager of the avian influenza working group within the CFIA. “We want to focus our resources on prevention as much as possible but we also have to be ready to respond if a situation develops.
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He said the money will be used on projects as varied as research, stockpiling anti-viral poultry vaccines, preparing educational material for mass media use in the event of an outbreak and increasing staff to ensure bio-security rules are being followed.
Clark said the agency also will be contacting former CFIA veterinarians, vet schools and private veterinarian networks to see if they would be willing to join the fight against the disease if there is an outbreak.
The money to the CFIA was part of a five-year billion-dollar commitment in the May 2 federal budget to “pandemic preparedness.”
Conservative finance minister Jim Flaherty, in background budget papers tabled in Parliament, said $600 million would be spread between the Public Health Agency of Canada, CFIA, Health Canada and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
The remaining $400 million will be in reserve for use if a pandemic breaks out or the risk increases.
