Background Information
Influenza pandemics with novel viruses are recurring events, are unpredictable and result in serious health effects to large proportions of the population, with significant disruption to social, economic and security concerns of the community.
The recent appearance of the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus A / H5N1 has raised concerns that this virus may mutate to create a novel virus capable of causing a significant global influenza pandemic.
Predicted Spread and Virulence
- Illness rates in population: 20-50%
- Global spread in: 3 months
- Vaccine availability: 6 months after initial outbreak
- Anti-viral treatment: Likely to be in short supply and may not be effective
Potential Effects
- Widespread disruption to business: 20-60% of working population unable to work for 2-4 weeks at the height of a severe pandemic wave. Each wave may last about 8 weeks
- Significant death rate - loss of people and expertise
- Loss of emergency and essential services - fire, police, health services, air traffic controllers
- Loss of other services - retail, transport, government departments, etc.
Effect for Business
- Loss of people to operate the business (either temporary or permanent)
- Loss of services from suppliers
- Operations (e.g. production) and support (e.g. IT) will be affected
- Business travel will be affected
Back to Top