*APEC EINet: http://depts.washington.edu/einet/*
   
Greetings, 
APEC EINet is pleased to invite you to serve on the steering committee for a special videoconference on a critical and timely topic: Pandemic Influenza Preparedness: Partnerships and Continuity Planning for Critical Systems. This videoconference is a follow-up to our first "virtual symposium", which was conducted in January 2006 with great success (participating economies were Australia, Canada, China, Korea, Philippines, Singapore, Taipei, Thailand, USA, and Viet Nam). You can view a short video clip of our previous virtual symposium at: http://depts.washington.edu/einet/symposium.html.  
The steering committee will meet in Singapore on December 10, 2007. The meeting will be one full day and take place at the REDI Center in Biopolis, Singapore. After reviewing the objectives of the second symposium we will 1) finalize the date of the videoconference, 2) determine the agenda and content of the symposium and 3) discuss dissemination strategies.  We will also host a dinner the evening of December 9.  
Our upcoming videoconference will take place in April or May 2008 (date to be determined) and explore how each economy is preparing for pandemic influenza. Specifically, we will discuss how economies are forming partnerships (e.g. public-private) to share information and to find solutions to critical systems continuity planning. 
We are at this time asking the APEC Health Task Force members and other colleagues to nominate members for our international steering committee for this event. This committee will help formulate the themes and aims of the virtual symposium and work with the APEC EINet team and other teams (e.g. APEC Business Advisory Council) to coordinate the event.  
The overall aim of this videoconference is to promote regional information sharing and collaboration to enhance preparedness against pandemic influenza. In order to improve preparedness regionally, it is vital to understand how each economy in the region is undertaking preparedness. Specifically, EINet's proposed aims are to: 
1.      Bring together economies in a dynamic, real-time discussion on preparedness through the collaboration of the health and the business/trade sectors, with a focus on critical systems continuity.

2.      Share specific examples of current practices---e.g. scenario exercises, communication drills and policy evaluation.     
3.      Use innovative technologies (e.g. Access Grid) for real-time, virtual interchange, enhancing their utility for future collaboration and response in time of a pandemic.   
Please respond by Friday, November 16 to Ms. Debbie Johnson at debbiewj@u.washington.edu  or Ms. Emiko Mizuki at emizuki@u.washington.edu 

They are available to answer any administrative or logistical questions.  
Thank you for your interest, and we hope to see you on December 10 in Singapore.

Very Best regards, 
Sincerely,  
Ann Marie Kimball

Director, APEC Emerging Infections Network (EINet)  
Louis Fox

Associate Vice President, Learning & Scholarly Technologies, University of Washington  
Jacqueline BrownAssistant Vice President, Information Technology Partnerships, University of Washington
  
Yuzo Arima, MPH

Research Assistant

APEC EINet

apecein@u.washington.edu