The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Centers for Disease Control says that during a normal flu season, between five and 20% of the U.S. population gets the flu, 200,000 people are hospitalized due to flu complications, and 36,000 die. This is normal. Can you imagine what would happen if a pandemic flu hit for which there was no vaccine? Our hospitals and emergency response personnel wouldn't even be able to handle the load.
Everywhere you look, there are articles, news stories and even dedicated Web sites addressing whether the country has been appropriately preparing for the inevitable: a pandemic flu outbreak that causes worldwide panic and loss of human life.
This possibility isn't a new one; there have historically been outbreaks that affect large population segments and even kill hundreds of thousands. Three influenza viruses within the 20th century have produced major outbreaks: the 1918 Spanish Flu, which took more than 500,000 American lives and up to 50 million worldwide; the 1957 Asian Flu, which killed around 70,000 in the United States and up to 2 million internationally; and the 1968-69 Hong Kong Flu, which killed 34,000 in the United States and 700,000 worldwide.
Pandemic Probabilities
Let's address what makes for a pandemic flu outbreak. What conditions make the difference between the seasonal influenza and a devastating global illness?
The main difference is prevention. Our bodies build up immunity to viruses they've encountered in the past, which is why not everyone who is exposed to the common, seasonal flu becomes ill. Still, every year before flu season, the CDC encourages Americans to get a “flu shot” to prevent large populations from getting and spreading the common form of influenza. The shot is formulated to prevent the common strains of flu that have been identified. Pandemics become possible when the population has had no opportunity to build up immunity and no vaccine is available.
In the case of the so-called Bird Flu or Avian Flu—the H5N1 flu virus—there is no evidence at this point that the strain has mutated to be easily transmitted from human to human. Most of the people who have died from H5N1 in Asia have had very close contact with birds carrying the strain. However, the CDC claims that H5N1 is a rapidly mutating virus, and if it were to begin passing from human to human, a pandemic could ensue.
The conditions for pandemic Bird Flu infection are in place. Since a human-transmitted strain would be a new mutation, the individual immune system would be helpless to fight it off. Who knows what it will look like when it does mutate? In addition, the government has already said that it will take 12 to 15 months to produce a vaccine and get it to the public.
What Private Industry Should Do
The government isn't the only entity that should be acting to prevent and plan for an outbreak. Private enterprise needs to step up to the plate as well.
As companies begin to make their response plans, many are instituting internal procedures that range from educational seminars from their local health departments on effective personal protection plans to stockpiling of N95 anti-virus masks. Employers should remind their employees to properly wash their hands and cover their mouths when coughing or sneezing. They should be aware of the signs of infection in others, such as coughing, sneezing, runny nose, watery eyes and nausea.
Some companies are instituting travel procedures that track employees and their families traveling overseas to the countries presently realizing Avian Flu cases in order to monitor symptoms as they are revealed when they return home. Employers may request that those who exhibit symptoms after return remain at home if possible. As with any of these plans that affect a change to the normal work environment, Human Resources must be involved from the very outset to ensure work-related options are approved.
What many companies are now realizing is that operations that include the pandemic flu plan cannot be instituted in a more siloed way than their existing business continuity and workforce continuity plans.
Any business continuity plan, developed with physical security measures in mind, as well as the standard information technology disaster recovery actions, must include the ability to maintain sufficient trained workers in each discipline to carry on their core business and contractual obligations. The operative word in this context is “trained.” You may have the right numbers of personnel available, but are they the right numbers of necessary people for maintaining operations?
Continuity Through Virtual Offices
The loss of qualified employees due to illness could not be avoided during previous pandemic flu outbreaks. But modern businesses have a significant advantage here. Technology can now support “virtual offices” and telecommuting for ill employees. Some companies have developed whole infrastructures that rely on nothing but off-site personnel communicating and producing deliverables without going into an office environment.
Global operations supported by different locations as well as languages can benefit by ensuring translation software is in place at any office with a different main language than the core business. The days of making sure personnel can physically make it to the office to ensure continuity of operations are gone. Technology has replaced the need for person-to-person contact and interface in order to survive; the ability to withstand a pandemic flu outbreak is but a step away from reality.
Global operations for many companies and corporations rely on in-depth and accurate reporting of information relative to operations, personnel and assets to maintain business continuity.
Reliable and effective communication tools such as Blackberries, pagers and cell phones, enhance the strategy for maintaining operations even during the worst disaster, to include a pandemic flu outbreak. What is necessary for sustaining stability in the workplace is the ability to communicate through whatever means available. For those businesses that use a layered approach to communications, survivability is at the forefront of their concern.
Communication packages that include a portable wireless “field” for Internet connectivity at the business location, supported by a satellite uplink connection, ensure reliable communications even during a disaster in which cell towers are saturated.
Proper planning by private industry is an important factor in reaching the international goal of minimizing the impact of a pandemic outbreak.
Robert F. Lang, CPP is consulting with U.S. and global corporations on emergency planning, business continuity and pandemic planning and response. He has acted as the director of homeland security and the director of research security at Georgia Tech University . Mr. Lang's more than 30 years in security have taken him from the FBI in Fort Lauderdale and Miami, FL to the Lockheed Corporation in Marietta, GA, where he was the plant protection manager prior to going to Georgia Tech.
