Risk Alert
Avian Flu: Preparing for a Pandemic
Introduction
With increasing urgency over the past year, a variety of governments,
nongovernmental organizations, industry groups, and
media outlets have trumpeted the potential dangers of avian
influenza, commonly called “bird flu.” Of the 139 people known
to have been infected with avian flu as of the publication date,
71 have died—a fearsome mortality rate. Suddenly, the word
“pandemic” is on the tongues of world leaders, references to the
catastrophic 1918 Spanish Flu are common, and many businesses
are nervously looking for gaps in their business-continuity plans.
Human deaths from the bird flu have been reported in five countries.
Thus far, the spread of the virus to humans has largely been
accomplished through contact with infected birds, although a
few possible cases of human-to-human transmission are being
investigated. These cases involved families where prolonged daily
contact and exposure existed. The possibility that the virus will
mutate to allow sustained human-to-human transmission has
health authorities on high alert.
“It is only a matter of time before an avian flu virus—most likely
H5N1—acquires the ability to be transmitted from human to
human, sparking the outbreak of human pandemic influenza.
We don’t know when this will happen. But we do know that it
will happen,” Lee Jong-wook, director-general of the World Health
Organization (WHO), said during a recent gathering of health
experts from more than 100 countries.
Likewise, businesses would be well-advised to ensure their
emergency-response and business-continuity plans are up-todate
and include specific planning for dealing with a pandemic.
Corporate Preparedness and
Business Continuity
Many businesses, particularly large multinational corporations,
have established avian flu/pandemic planning committees.
According to media reports, some are creating task forces combining
their strategic planning, operations-continuity procedures,
human resources, and health services to adopt event-specific
measures in anticipation of an avian flu pandemic. Others—
primarily in parts of the food industry that use poultry—are
preparing marketing campaigns aimed at allaying fears about
the use of their products—and thus protecting their brands—
should an avian flu pandemic occur.
It’s also likely that many companies are not making any special
preparations in advance of what they see as the slim likelihood
of an avian flu pandemic; instead operating with the belief
that should one occur, either it will not affect them, or they
will respond as the need arises.
An outbreak of avian flu will severely test even the best-laid
business-continuity plans, and businesses are well-advised to
review and revise their plans in the light of this threat. In theory,
business-continuity management (BCM) should already be in
place to identify, respond to, and recover from a broad range
of potential interruptions. Pandemic influenza, however, isn’t
a “normal” business risk. Some of a pandemic’s unique characteristics
include:
- an international impact with no demarcation by culture,
industry, or geography;
- the potential to escalate quickly and last for many months;
- a projected infection rate of 25 percent or more of the world’s
population, according to many public health experts;
- extreme taxation of health care facilities, public health
agencies, and their work forces; and
- a macro impact on regional and global economies that could
result in a significant shift in the way that companies conduct
their businesses and their ability to continue operations.
There are a number of steps companies should be taking and
issues they should be considering before an outbreak, during an
outbreak, and after an outbreak. The following guidelines do
not present an exhaustive picture of such preparations, but are
intended to foster discussion.
If avian flu does not emerge, the time spent on planning and
preparation will not have been wasted. After all, avian flu is a
good proxy for other potential pandemics; pandemics are a good
proxy for potential bioterrorism; bioterrorism is a good proxy for
other forms of terrorism. Corporate preparedness is a transferable
skill—even if the risk emerges from a totally different direction
or source than anticipated.
Before an Outbreak
Risk managers and other executives with risk management
responsibilities should consider the following before a pandemic
begins:
- Understand the nature of the disease and the potential means
by which it could directly and indirectly affect their operations,
resources, reputations, and financial fitness.
- Review existing corporate-preparedness plans, procedures, and
policies, including business-continuity plans, risk management
controls, human-resource policies, communications capabilities,
critical suppliers and vendors, and potential sales impacts. All
existing plans should be reviewed, updated, and tested based
on the threat posed by a pandemic. For example, companies
should ask themselves, “Will my plan work in the event of
having fewer people, losing certain critical people, or having
staff working from remote locations? Will the real or perceived
fear of an infection affect sales? How can we position the
company to respond positively to this negative event?”
- Regularly contact governments, international agencies, and
industry groups about the availability of guidance from which
the company and its staff could benefit.
- Companies should also ensure they know what to do and
whom to inform should they identify a suspected case of avian
flu among their employees. Agree internally on what circumstances
relative to avian flu would trigger invocation of a BCM
plan—what are the key risk indicators?
- Re-examine the supply chain, and assess what additional risks
avian flu presents to the continuation of service from suppliers
and vendors. Consider the increased risk presented from using
international versus regional suppliers, particularly from areas
already infected.
- Review or develop employee health procedures to minimize the
potential for transmission of infectious diseases to other workers.
- Issue periodic “news releases” to employees to educate them
about the disease and what health care precautions they need
to take at home and in the workplace.
- Test operations-continuity plans regularly. If a company
believes that avian flu presents a significant risk, it should
consider running a rehearsal using various outbreak scenarios
to test the plan’s effectiveness.
- Try to ensure that senior managers have the skills to manage
such an event before it becomes a crisis.
Upon Outbreak
During a pandemic, the ability of an organization to identify
problems and respond quickly and effectively will make a significant
difference to the success or failure of protecting staff, profits,
and reputation and, ultimately, to the company’s survival.
Companies should consider structuring their corporate-preparedness
plans for a pandemic crisis into four to six escalating action
thresholds that would provide warning information in advance
and allow individual facilities, regions, and businesses to detect
an emerging event and respond appropriately at each escalated
threshold.Tiered planning should provide applicable guidance
pertaining to:
- allocation of company resources;
- health and safety issues and procedures;
- operations responses;
- human-resource/benefits involvement;
- internal and external communications;
- financial-resource allocation and impact analyses;
- government involvement; and
- product, facility, information technology (IT) and intellectual
property security controls.
Companies should review their existing preparedness plans and
consider how—and if—they will be able to answer the following
questions during an outbreak:
Information and Communication Concerns
- What is the nature of the disease? How is it transmitted,
what are its symptoms, and what health care precautions
are appropriate?
- Do employees know what to do and whom to contact if they
are infected or may have been exposed to the virus?
- How will the company communicate with its employees if
they are not at work?
- At what point do managers need to communicate to upper
management that there is a potential problem?
- How will potential problems be communicated to employees
and clients?
- Have call centers been set up to maintain contact with
suppliers, clients, and employees?
Human-Resource/Benefit Concerns
- What is the company’s position if an employee wants to
work at home?
- What happens if an infected employee comes to work?
- What if a non-native employee wants to be temporarily
transferred to another region? What about his/her family?
- Is or should the company be prepared to provide family death
support?
Operational Concerns
- How does the company know that supply resources are
not contaminated?
- Can the company have employees work remotely? What infrastructure
support is needed to support a shift to an at-home
work force?
- How will clients be assured that products are not contaminated?
- Will there be a disruption to the company’s supply chains?
- What are the procedures to decontaminate the facility and
its heating, ventilation, air-conditioning systems, electronic
equipment, and soft materials (blankets, curtains, and so on)?
- What assurances need to be provided to the facility staff that
they are safe at work?
- At what point does the company prohibit staff from traveling
to certain geographic areas?
- How will traveling employees be brought home, particularly if
they are sick?
- Are there escalation procedures to get additional resources?
- Is there a trained crisis-management team that includes
on-call staff? Do the team members know what is expected of
them? Are the correct personnel—management and others—
designated to participate on the team?
Risk-Communication Concerns
- Risk-Communication Concerns
- Have press releases been prepared that can be adapted to fit
the situation?
- Are mechanisms in place for managing internal and external
communications?
- What if the current means of communication fail?
- Are there trained spokespeople for dealing with the media and
other stakeholders?
During an Escalating Pandemic
Businesses looking to ensure continued operations during the
pandemic and in its immediate aftermath may find the following
questions critical:
- Is the business-recovery team operating effectively? Does it
have the necessary and readily available resources to support
its activities? Where will the team and its support resources
stay if they have to travel or relocate to a facility?
- Has the team initially identified and monitored changes of
the recovery-time objectives for each of the critical business
processes that may be interrupted?
- Have continuity strategies been developed for each process?
Have they been integrated in an effective manner or prioritized,
particularly if multiple facilities and regions are affected?
- Have supply-chain dependencies been identified and alternative
channels identified and secured in case of disruption? What
happens if the backup fails?
- Are there alternative premises and facilities within and outside
of an affected region that can be used? Are transport links likely
to be sufficient to get people and resources to the alternate sites?
© 2006 Marsh Inc. All rights reserved.
(Excerpt from 'Risk Alert Volume V,Issue 1 Junuary 2006/ Avian Flu:Preparing for a Pandemic')
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