TORONTO -- If and when the bird flu or related pandemics hit Canada, officials need to make sure truckers are among the first professionals get treatment, according to a new study in bioethics.

Truck drivers, utility workers, as well as doctors and nurses should be the top priorities in deciding who gets medical care, says Nancy Kass, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics and author of a recent study on the issue.

As the Toronto Star reports, researchers point out that there are fewer itemized goods in inventory these days, as most freight is delivered just-in-time.

Therefore, truckers and other "first responders" to a crisis, such as utility workers, police and firefighters, need to get medical treatment first to keep society moving -- sometimes even before medical personnel, says Kass.

While work needs to be done, trucking is more
prepared for a pandemic in Canada than most industries.

Health care workers, after all, can't do their job without proper supplies, electricity, water and other systems that need to be delivered.

Grocery stores, the study says, typically have only three days' worth of food, gas stations need deliveries every one to three days, and water treatment plants keep only one to two weeks' worth of chlorine on hand for water treatment.

Past studies into planning requirements for a so-called bird flu pandemic suggested that 70 percent of the nation's entire population could be exposed. Half of those people would become ill with a mortality rate as high as 57 percent. Very young children, the elderly, and people with weak immune systems would be hit hardest.

The Ontario Trucking Association is one group in a variety of industries that put contingency plans in place back when bird flu was still making headlines.

Today's Trucking published an award-nominated article in 2006 on trucking's critical role in the event of a pandemic. You can read it here.