VZCZCXRO8445
PP RUEHAG RUEHDF RUEHHM RUEHIK RUEHLN RUEHLZ RUEHPB
DE RUEHFR #2834/01 1181554
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 281554Z APR 06
FM AMEMBASSY PARIS
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 6821
INFO RUEHRC/DEPT OF AGRICULTURE WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEAUSA/DEPT OF HHS WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEAHLC/DEPT OF HOMELAND SECURITY WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RUEHPH/CDC ATLANTA GA PRIORITY
RUCNMEM/EU MEMBER STATES COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHZN/EST COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RHEBAAA/DEPT OF ENERGY WASHINGTON DC
RUEHMRE/AMCONSUL MARSEILLE 1122
RUEHSR/AMCONSUL STRASBOURG 0109

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 PARIS 002834 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR G/AIAG, S/ES-O/CMS, OES/IHA, CA/OCS, M/MED, EUR, EUR/EX 
HHS FOR INTERNATIONAL - TGAY, SNIGHTINGALE 
USDA FOR ITP/MACKE/THOMAS, CMP/DLP/WETZEL 
USDA FOR FAS PASS FSIS AND APHIS 
CDC FOR DR NANCY POWELL 
HOMELAND SECURITY FOR OIA SEQUEIRA 
DOE FOR DEPUTY U/S COUNTERTERRORISM AOKI 
TRANSPORTATION SECURITY ADMINISTRATION FOR INTL STEIN 
LONDON FOR DR. SUVARI 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KFLU AMGT AEMR AMED ASEC CASC FR
SUBJECT: FRENCH NATIONAL AVIAN INFLUENZA EXERCISE - "THANK GOD IT 
WAS ONLY AN EXERCISE...." 
 
 
PARIS 00002834  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Summary:  At the request of French authorities, on April 
24-25 Embassy participated in their National Avian Influenza 
Exercise, together with the Prime Minister's Office responsible for 
security coordination (SGDN), numerous ministries, international 
organizations (OIE, WHO, EU, FAO, and ECDC, the EU CDC equivalent), 
as well as several other Paris-based embassies.   While the GOF will 
not provide results before end-May, from the Embassy's narrow window 
on the exercise, it highlighted dramatically the need for thorough 
multi-dimensional planning to cope with a pandemic.  The opening 
exercise scenario presented rapidly developing chaos in a fictional 
SE Asian country once a mutated H5 virus developed human-to-human 
transmissibility.  Shortly thereafter infected airline passengers 
embarked for destinations across the globe, including in U.S. and 
European cities.  On the second exercise day - fictionally weeks 
later - the pandemic had blossomed to infect millions worldwide. 
Even hyper-prepared countries like France suffered in a downward 
pandemic spiral.  End Summary. 
 
------------------------ 
Ambitious Exercise 
------------------------ 
 
¶2. (SBU) Following two postponements, on April 24-25 the French 
government conducted an extensive 'tabletop' exercise to test the 
French National Avian Influenza Plan (www.grippeaviaire.gouv.fr), to 
train government officials in crisis management, and to evaluate 
their performance.  Several embassies (UK, Germany, Sweden, 
Luxembourg, and Australia, beside our own) were included to help 
test the Foreign Ministry's role in the National Plan.  The exercise 
was the product of elaborate preparation.  In advance of receiving 
instructions, those participating provided their own AI emergency 
plans and contact information to GOF authorities.   In addition, 
planners from SGDN met with all participants to provide exercise 
guidance and possible scenario themes, while preserving the release 
of the detailed scenarios reserved for the exercise.  Kicking off 
the exercise on April 24, a paramilitary gendarme dropped-off at the 
Embassy DVDs containing the actual exercise scenarios. 
 
¶3.  (SBU) In addition to the background DVDs, the exercise consisted 
of a flood (every fifteen minutes) of SGDN-supplied information such 
as diplomatic notes, French ministerial notices, newspaper articles, 
television broadcast transcripts, Internet chat, emails, as well as 
phone calls - intended to inform and disorient at the same time. 
Participants reacted to pieces of information related to their part 
in the pandemic exercise.   Although the Embassy's point-of-contact 
was with the AI crisis cell at the MFA, we had occasional contact 
with other embassies participating wanting to know how we were 
'gaming' our responses to Foreign Ministry queries. 
 
------------------------- 
Deadly Scenarios.... 
------------------------- 
 
¶4.  (SBU)  The first day scenario depicted a time when the H5N1 
virus had mutated into the H5N2 virus with human-to-human 
transmissibility.    Sickchikie, a fictional textile and high 
technologies exporting country of 90 million inhabitants bordering 
Vietnam (in place of the Gulf of Tonkin), provided the genesis of 
the new pathogenic strain.   After several cases of infected humans 
in that country turned into a larger group of 200, the WHO announced 
a world caution corresponding to phase five (5) of its AI plan. 
Almost immediately, expatriates and Sickchickie nationals sought to 
flee the country.  Despite efforts to retard the progress of the 
disease, passengers on aircraft to transportation hubs on several 
continents developed avian influenza symptoms.  Meanwhile, other 
sources related tales of a panicked French population as parents 
removed children from schools, did not themselves go to work, and 
pharmacies and grocery stores quickly sold out of merchandise. 
 
¶5.  (SBU)  By day two of the exercise - hypothetically several weeks 
later -- the scenario had become grave.   We moved to French AI plan 
 
PARIS 00002834  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
level six (6) - full-scale pandemic.  Millions of human beings 
around the globe were infected and mortality rates of victims were 
high: Greater than two percent in those countries with limited 
medicines and health care systems.  The scenario DVD for day two 
showed long clips of mass interments.  Many financial services had 
ceased to function, as did sanitation services and private sector 
delivery of goods and services.  In France, the health system was 
severely taxed, especially due to medical practitioner parents of 
children deciding to tend to their children at home rather than to 
flu victims in hospitals.  Security services functioned but were 
strained.   We were bombarded with reports of looting, especially 
with vigilantes seeking medicine.  The Internet served to provide 
information but also to disseminate rumors. 
 
------------------------------ 
Quickly Overwhelmed... 
------------------------------ 
 
¶6.  (SBU)  In a post-exercise debrief with other participating 
embassies conducted by SGDN, all noted the intensity and rapidity 
with which the crisis unfolded and described the sense of immediate 
'stress and helplessness' felt by players.  While the scenario set 
the stage, responding to the constant stream of information from 
exercise organizers redoubled the feeling of crisis.  Although we 
exclusively communicated with the MFA's crisis cell, the organizers 
in the post-exercise debrief accepted that in reality the Embassy 
would work directly with GOF contacts in the ministries, law 
enforcement agencies, and local defense forces than route requests 
through the MFA at every juncture. 
 
¶7.  (SBU)  At the same debriefing, representatives of several 
embassies mentioned that transportation issues, e.g., the treatment 
of aircraft carrying possible AI infectees, had stymied gamers. 
Tamiflu presented numerous problems for third country embassy 
exercise participants.  France, for example, wants to be in a 
position to be able to dispense Tamiflu to each of its nationals, 
worldwide.  Other countries have limited access to Tamiflu.  One 
third-country consular officer mentioned to U.S. officers at the 
debriefing that his government's guidance to its citizens is that 
they secure their own, personal stocks of Tamiflu.  However, he said 
that it was unreasonable since private citizens have difficulty 
obtaining personal stocks of the medicine, especially without a 
prescription.  This was important (at least for exercise purposes) 
since Tamiflu treatment reduced the exercise AI mortality rates. 
(It was very clear from the scenario documents, too, that those 
countries accessing anti-viral medicines and possessing good medical 
services had lower mortality rates from the fictional virus than 
those, mostly poorer countries.)  European embassies at the 
debriefing raised challenges associated with dealing with the EU in 
the AI pandemic situation.  We learned at the debriefing that the EU 
is planning its own AI exercise soon. 
 
----------- 
Lessons? 
----------- 
 
¶8.  (SBU)  The speed with which a highly pathogenic AI pandemic 
crisis could erupt underscored for Embassy participants the 
importance of having a crisis-reaction infrastructure in place 
early.  Awareness on the part of key mission elements of what roles 
they would play in an actual crisis would also be important to 
weathering a crisis.   Physical infrastructure might require some 
changes, too, at an Embassy in which only critical personnel 
reported to work, possibly a place for an Embassy crisis cell. 
Although Embassy's responses to GOF requests for information and 
policy were creative and - we thought - mostly realistic, we did not 
need to contact Washington agencies for guidance.  But in a real 
emergency, we would need to be in immediate contact with experts in 
DHS, TSA, HHS, State, Defense, and other departments. 
 
¶9.  (SBU) Embassy exercise participants envisioned situations in 
 
PARIS 00002834  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
which it could become difficult to assure security of all Embassy 
facilities, particularly annexes of the chancery, due to breakdowns 
in civil order occasioned by a full-scale pandemic.  We hypothesized 
that the Embassy staff could very well become degraded due to 
sickness and physical inability to report to duty, for a variety of 
reasons such as transportation disruptions.  At one point in the 
exercise, Embassy participants sought reinforcement of Embassy 
facilities by French gendarmes following the discovery of an 
Internet rumor that the Embassy had stockpiled antiviral medicine in 
the off-site Consular Section.  Embassy exercise participants as 
well as exercise participants from other countries' embassies 
experienced the sense of being quickly overwhelmed by demands from 
their citizens for assistance. 
 
¶10.  (SBU) Comment:  What was disquieting to participants in this 
exercise was that from what we have read about avian influenza, the 
scenarios - the outbreak of the human-to-human H5 mutation and the 
subsequent, rapid descent into worldwide chaos and death - did not 
strike us as wildly exaggerated.   In the 'warm' de-briefing by 
participants from different Paris-based embassies, the one refrain 
was, "We hope to never have to deal with such a crisis."  The 
practical result of the exercise was that it served to focus the 
minds of the participants on the need for preparation.   Post 
Management will assure that all members of the Tri-Mission Avian 
Influenza Working Group watch the Exercise Scenario DVDs.  Embassy 
will report official exercise results as soon as available. End 
comment. 
 
 
STAPLETON