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ACTE PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
ACTE To Resume International Contagion Containment Initiative
Vancouver, BC, Canada (May 2) -- Disease spread by international business travel is one of the greatest threats to every industrialized nation, according to Greeley Koch, president of the Association of Corporate Travel Executives. Koch was speaking yesterday to 1,100 business travel management professionals and procurement specialists from around the world, who converged on Vancouver, Canada, for ACTE's annual spring conference (May 1-3). This statement prefaced an announcement that the association would pursue an international contagion containment policy as a major initiative.
"The outbreak of SARS in 2003 was our first warning," said Koch. "The manner and extent in which SARS was spread gave us a good indication of what we might expect again in the future. International travel to Asia and then to everyplace else dropped as public fear rose. That fear was not unjustified, as hospitals in Toronto and Asia quickly became overwhelmed."
ACTE's president reminded the assembly that renown Dr. Gro Brundtlund warned the industry only a year ago (at another ACTE conference in Orlando) that an outbreak of a flu-like disease would occur again sooner or later... And could spread around the world with relative ease. She made it clear that an Asian Avian Flu pandemic could number casualties in the millions.
"SARS cost the business travel industry $8 billion in 2003," said Koch. "There is never a good time to lose $8 billion, but the economic havoc wreaked by an unchecked flu pandemic today would have disastrous effects on the global transportation network."
As the first step in preventing this occurrence, Koch is directing the association to renew its ties with the Center For Disease Control and open new channels of communication with the World Health Organization. ACTE leaders met with the CDC 18 months ago, in a primary discussion outlining immediate steps the industry could take.
"One such step would entail keeping track of where passengers sat on flights, and being able to call up contact information at a later date," said Koch. "This would be to notify passengers that they may have been exposed to an infected traveler." Other measures would be more complex, such as uniform containment policies and airport screenings for infection.
"Right now, you can assume that preparations for this sort of thing are not very advanced," he added.
ACTE's previous efforts to further this initiative were quietly shelved when SARS was officially contained and industry attention turned to recovery. "It became an unpopular subject," said Koch. "But failure to address the problem will only guarantee we'll be equally unprepared in the future, and that won't be very popular either."
The ACTE president is expected to name an initiative leader in the weeks following the spring conference. The international nature of the initiative lends itself to a cross-regional endeavor, with participants from each of ACTE's four (soon to be five) regions.
For more information, contact:
Jack Riepe
ACTE Global Communications Director
t: 610-719-8396
c: 610-256-0124
e: [email protected]
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ACTE US and Canada
515 King St, Suite 340
Alexandria, VA 22314
Tel: 1-703-683-5322
Fax: 1-703-683-2720
[email protected]
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