WHO Warning Eases Legal Liability
Michelle Baran, Travel Weekly, 6/12/2009
When the World Health Organization declared June 11 that "the world is now at the start of the 2009 influenza pandemic," the H1N1 swine flu virus became not just Mexico's headache but everyone's problem.
And paradoxically, now that it's everyone's problem, it is, in effect, no one's problem -- at least from the standpoint of travel agents' legal liability.
"Risks and dangers that are known as well to clients as they are to agents don't create legal problems for failure to warn on the part of agents," said Mark Pestronk, a travel lawyer and Travel Weekly columnist.
In other words, there are no liability issues in selling travel in the midst a global pandemic that is being reported in the mass media. When it comes to H1N1, agents and suppliers do not have access to proprietary or insider information that they should consequently share with customers.
The last influenza pandemic was declared in 1968 in Hong Kong and resulted in 1 million deaths.
Since late April, when the WHO announced the emergence of a novel influenza A virus, nearly 30,000 confirmed cases of H1N1 have been reported in 74 countries. And because the monitoring, diagnostic and reporting abilities of many countries are deficient, the health organization says the actual number of infected people is likely to be much higher.
On June 11, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised people to get used to living with the threat of H1N1 for some time to come, stating that it "anticipates that there will be more cases, more hospitalizations and more deaths associated with this pandemic in the coming days and weeks."
No travel restrictions recommended
And while the threat is very real, the impact on the travel industry should be slight. The WHO made it clear that it continues to recommend no restrictions on travel and no border closings.
Medical experts say there is no point in reducing cross-border travel because it would do nothing to stem the spread of the disease. Nor, they say, does the WHO's new Level 6 pandemic warning change that reality.
"From a practical point of view, nothing has changed, and it is not expected that any countries will make any changes related to travel or ports of entry," Dr. David Freedman, an epidemiologist with the International Society of Travel Medicine, wrote in an email to Travel Weekly immediately following the WHO's announcement. "Individual travelers need not do anything different."
The most that travelers, or anyone for that matter, should do, he said, is practice good hygiene.
"Good respiratory and hand hygiene is always advised," Freedman wrote. "Qualified and informed travel medicine clinics are available to those with a higher level of anxiety or additional concerns or detailed questions. However, all will be delivering this same message."