By Brian E. Clark
WisBusiness.com
MADISON – Disease as a national security threat will be one of the main topics at an all-day symposium that will be held Friday on the UW-Madison campus.
The conference will also focus on what the state and Dane County are doing to prepare for a possible avian flu pandemic, said Alison Alter, associate director of the university’s Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy (WAGE), the conference’s lead sponsor.
She said the conference is designed to build bridges between the university and the public, and across the natural and social sciences, as well as to increase the capacity to confront bioterrorism and emerging diseases.
Alter said top government and academicians from Washington, D.C. and Madison will discuss issues surrounding global biological threats at the free symposium, which will be held in Grainger Hall, 975 University Ave. (To register, go wage@intl-institute.wisc.edu.)
“Understanding the origins, risks, and possible solutions to these problems demands a multi-faceted response,” said Alter, who said the response to the conference has been strong.
“We thought we would get perhaps 75 people and most of them from the campus,” she said. “But we’ve had 200 people register and the majority of them are from off campus.
“Even the fire chief from Appleton is coming, as well as representatives of Alliant Energy and Promega Corp., for example,” she said.
This symposium follows a related symposium held just last month in Madison. Dubbed Wisconsin’s Pandemic Readiness Summit, it attracted officials from commerce, schools and churches to discuss preparations for a flu pandemic. Other forums have been held around the state as well, Alter said.
“This is the first conference of this kind for the university,” Alter said. “This will be a general overview of the issue and how prepared we are.”
Alter said she believes the public is aware of the avian flu threat, which has killed more than 100 people in Asia, Africa and Europe. It has yet to reach North America.
“We are very pleased with the response,” she said, noting that the symposium has been lengthened and will include a question-and-answer session at the end.
“In addition to avian flu and the threat of bioterrorism, we’ll also be looking at things we are doing to the environment that are changing the risk environment.
“We’ll also have a private sector planning session that will cover things like ‘how does a business function if everyone is quarantined?” she said.
She said Dr. Eric Noji, senior policy advisor for health and national security for the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), will deliver the keynote address, “Disease as a National Security Threat.”
He is also the former associate director for bio-emergency preparedness and response with the National Center for Infectious Diseases at the CDC.
Other speakers include:
*Dr. Jonathan Patz, a WAGE Senior Fellow, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, on “Emerging Disease Threats from Ecological Change.
*Hon Ip, a virologist at the USGS National Wildlife Health Center on “Avian Influenza: How Close Are We to a Pandemic?”
*Josh Dein, a USGS veterinarian, Madison, on “Wildlife Health Monitoring Network.”
*Donald Moynihan, La Follette School of Public Affairs, on “Public Management Perspectives on Foreign Animal Diseases.”
*Vicki Bier, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, UW-Madison, on “Pandemic Planning: The Needs of the Private Sector.”
*Mary Proctor, program director of the Southcentral Wisconsin Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Consortium, on “Ready or Not: Preparedness at the Local Level.”
For more information on the symposium, http://wage.wisc.edu/Events/index.aspx?ID=58
