A new word is doing the rounds in political, business and social circles: pandemic. This time it`s all about avian flu and the various doomsday scenarios surrounding it that could see thousands, if not hundreds of thousands die in South Africa alone.
"The reality of avian flu currently is that at least 200 people have already contracted the virus worldwide, half of those have died and there is still no vaccine," says Louise Theunissen, consulting services manager of ContinuitySA.
"Scientists also expect the virus to spread quickly and will only be able to develop an effective vaccine three to six months after people start contracting the virus." Currently, the virus does not spread from person to person, however, should it begin mutating between humans then this is undoubtedly where both the problem and the risk will lie.
"Of course, there is also a possibility that there will be no pandemic as a result of avian flu. The truth is we can make best guesses and little more until it strikes and then it will be too late to prevent thousands of casualties. The only fact we can rely on is that a pandemic will strike. If it`s not avian flu it will be the next virus attack or the one after that."
South African companies are already feeling some of the effects of a pandemic due to the high number of AIDS victims in the workplace today - and to a lesser extent the number of tuberculosis sufferers. A pandemic of the future will be even worse, affecting companies without effective business continuity management strategies and processes, quickly and severely.
For example, an influenza pandemic is conservatively expected to affect 20% of each company`s workforce. In a modern company that has streamlined its staffing to cut costs, 20% fewer employees can seriously affect the organisation`s ability to perform.
"Unfortunately, that 20% will not be evenly distributed across the organisation," Theunissen adds. "Some areas of the company will not be affected at all when a pandemic strikes and others will bear the brunt of the attack. A call centre, for example, experiences a constant flow of people and is a perfect environment for spreading a disease. Imagine the problem if a company`s entire call centre was absent for days or even weeks. And what if the disease caused fatalities? This would become companies affected by a pandemic`s own 9/11.
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