Cargill Special Report - Cargill Meat Solutions

Tran Ngoc-Thanh saw some of the worst
manifestations of Avian Influenza unfold
before his eyes.
“In 2004, Avian Influenza was a serious
problem in Vietnam,” said Ngoc-Thanh, who
is poultry project manager for Cargill Animal
Nutrition in Bien Hoa, Vietnam. “The media
talked about it almost every day.”
At that time, the H5N1 strain of Avian
Influenza had affected poultry in nearly
75 percent of Vietnam’s provinces. Avian
Influenza had its biggest impact on poultry
in Vietnam. It accounted for about half of
the approximately 200 people worldwide
who caught the virus. About half of those
who became ill later died.
“When we recognized that Avian
Influenza had come to Dong Nai province,
where our poultry farm is located, we
decided to close the farm,” Ngoc-Thanh
said. “We kept about 70 percent of our
employees at work for their own protection.
For nearly four months from January to the
end of April in 2004, the employees had to
stay on the farm. When the government
announced that Vietnam was free of Avian
Influenza, we allowed our employees to go
back home every day after work.”
It was a small preview of some of the disruption
that could occur if Avian Influenza affected
humans. In Vietnam, that problem came from
people living among backyard poultry and not
taking prudent sanitary precautions.
In addition to the hardship of not being
able to go home every day after work, the
Cargill employees in Vietnam had to cope
with knowing that some people were becoming
sick through close and repeated contact
with diseased birds or contaminated surfaces.
It was a stressful time, but the Cargill people
had the advantage of knowledge and understanding.
“Our employees all knew that our
birds were free of Avian Influenza, and they
understood that if there was no outbreak in
the farm, they were safe,” Ngoc-Thanh said.
Pandemic scenarios
Of any country, Vietnam came the closest to
the two scenarios the Cargill Avian Influenza
Task Force and Experts Group have developed
around human pandemic flu.
Pandemic flu is a global outbreak of
disease that occurs when a new influenza
virus appears in the human population. The
H5N1 is a strain with pandemic potential,
since it might ultimately adapt into a strain
that is contagious among humans. Once this
adaptation occurs, it will no longer be a bird
virus – it will be a human flu virus.
While efficient human-to-human transmission
of H5N1 Avian Influenza hasn’t
occurred, some scientists are concerned
that the mutation will eventually happen.
Other scientists insist that this development
is unlikely. What nobody knows is whether
a mutation may occur or the severity of a
new human virus.
As the Cargill task force and Experts
Group looked at human pandemic flu scenarios,
they assumed that a pandemic – whether
severe or not – would result in trade and
travel restrictions. Depending on the severity,
there would be increased absenteeism
and productivity worldwide. And the pandemic
would result in human deaths.
One scenario Cargill developed was called
“Breaking Apart.” In this pessimistic scenario,
governments and others fail to work
together to address Avian Influenza in
poultry. As international cooperation breaks
down, governments create nationalistic
measures, such as closing down borders. The
consequences of those actions could lead to
an erosion of the global financial markets.
The more “optimistic” pandemic scenario
is called “Emerging Order,” in which a
public-private partnership addresses Avian
Influenza in poultry and reacts swiftly if a
human-to-human mutation begins to occur.
The task force and Experts Group
decided to focus on the more optimistic
“Emerging Order” scenario after an informal
meeting involving a half dozen or so
people from Cargill, McDonald’s, the
COPING WITH THE
UNTHINKABLE
The greatest fear about Avian Influenza is that the virus will mutate so it can spread among humans.
Cargill is planning so it can be ready for such a worst-case scenario.
BY MARK KLEIN
COPING WITH THE UNTHINKABLE
University Minnesota’s Center for Animal
Health and Food Safety, the World Bank
and the OIE, which is the World
Organization for Animal Health.
“At the meeting, we all felt there was a
growing recognition that to be successful at
reducing the risks associated with bird flu
and a pandemic, we needed collaboration
across many entities – governments, intergovernmental
agencies, non-governmental
organizations, academia and private industry,”
said Mike Robach, Cargill vice president
of Corporate Food Safety Regulatory
Affairs.
To encourage collaboration, Cargill and
McDonald’s created a public-private partnership
called SSAFE, which stands for Safe
Supply of Affordable Food Everywhere.
“SSAFE is at the center of Cargill’s
efforts,” said Robach, who is vice president
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