Area firms taking flu precautions

As the number of reported swine-flu cases grows, Philadelphia area businesses and organizations are responding with precautions, not panic.

The bottom line for many: good hygiene.

"We offer our staff a sink with soap and water," said Farah Jimenez, executive director of the Mount Airy USA community-development corporation in Northwest Philadelphia. "It seems to work for most things."

Workers with flulike symptoms are being urged to stay home. Some employers are advocating telecommuting.

Patti Daley of the Consumer Credit Counseling Service of the Delaware Valley Inc., of Philadelphia, urged staff to monitor the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web site, www.cdc.gov, for updates.

Companies with direct business ties to Mexico and South America, such as paper-products manufacturer SCA Americas Inc., of Philadelphia, are, naturally, being quite careful.

SCA, which has almost 2,500 workers in Mexico, has urged employees to avoid all nonessential travel to and in that country.

Physicians visited the company's four plants and an administrative office in Mexico last weekend. Brochures and 4,000 masks - required to be worn - were distributed, and cleaning schedules were accelerated, said spokeswoman Michelle Knoller-Dell.

Campbell Soup Co. has about 300 employees in Mexico, said spokesman Anthony Sanzio. Anyone with symptoms is supposed to stay home, and Campbell employees in Mexico City are encouraged to work from home. All employees are wearing mouth covers at work.

Any U.S.-based employee who has traveled to Mexico must remain home for four days, the incubation period for the virus, Sanzio added.

Wyeth spokesman Doug Petkus said a list of precautions had been distributed to employees, adding that the "situation has not negatively affected our facilities in Mexico" thus far.

The Drug Information Association, a nonprofit organization that provides education to those in the drug-development industry, said it had postponed its Latin American regulatory conference, set for May 13 to 15 in Mexico City. The Mexican government has restricted gatherings, making meeting there impossible right now, said acting executive director William Brassington.

The Association for Corporate Wellness - a group of medical and wellness executives from throughout the region - canceled its meeting yesterday at PSEG's Newark, N.J., headquarters "in the spirit of prevention," said the group's president and treasurer, Bill Lacy.

Prudential Fox Roach Inc. senior vice president Steve Storti told its 5,000 real estate agents and staff in the Philadelphia region "to follow government recommendations . . . and other precautions common with a more typical flu virus."

Merck & Co. Inc. spokeswoman Amy Rose said the company frequently saw demand rise for Pneumovax 23, its vaccine against pneumococcal disease, during flu season and epidemics. The company, with vaccine operations in West Point, Montgomery County, said it was assessing manufacturing options to meet potentially higher demand.

Merck also is giving 80,000 doses of Pneumovax 23 to the Mexican government to immunize health-care professionals responding to the swine-flu outbreak.