Big time swine: the toll from swine flu continues to rise with the number infected in the tens of thousands; UP FRONT: News, Updates and Other Emerging Strategies from Around the World

Brodsky, Matt



The World Health Organization declared on June 11 that the currentHIN1 outbreak has reached Phase 6. The swine flu has gone big time.

For businesses, Phase 6 is the last alarm bell.

"It needs to be considered a final call for pandemic preparedness," said Dr. Joan Pfinsgraff, director of health intelligence at i JET,a business-resiliency specialist.

Companies need to use the opportunity to evaluate how their preparedness plan has held up so far. Have your office hygiene and cleaningpractices been stepped up? Have you reviewed your sick policy, leavepolicy, travel policy, work-from-home policy and any other policy that involves employees coming and going? Is your IT system ready to handle more employees staying away from the office?

Organizations must also have plans in place to maintain a chain ofcommand for each department and location, no matter how many employees go down.

"So there is always someone there to be the leader," she said.

And decisions should have been made as to what is mission critical-in terms of people skills, travel, facilities and products.

To be honest, companies should have tackled these questions when the WHO declared Phases 4 and 5.

But if you haven't yet put into place a pandemic preparedness plan--which was the case for 43 percent of respondents in a recent survey, now's not the time to panic.

PHASE 6: HEALTH IMPACT

Let's not let unprepared employers off the hook too much however. The WHO announcement of Phase 6 is not really news.

The conditions of a pandemic have existed for weeks now, accordingto Dr. Andrew Coburn, vice president of catastrophe research at insurance modeler Risk Management Solutions Inc., which owns a proprietary pandemic model. WHO phases are based strictly on the spread of the disease, not severity. Community outbreaks must occur in at least onecountry in two or more WHO world regions for it to be officially defined as Phase 6.