Recent infectious disease outbreaks such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), H5N1 (i.e. Avian flu), and H1N1 (i.e. Swine flu) have captured worldwide attention. Health experts, government officials, and business leaders around the world agree that predicting the probability of a pandemic has become an ongoing activity, and monitoring is essential to this continuously evolving threat.

While the level of pandemic preparedness among Canadian business is relatively low, organizations are investing in their value chains and employees in order to reduce the potential impact of current and impending pandemic or high absenteeism risks.

Through the presence of an effective Pandemic Preparedness and Response Program organizations can achieve economic returns before, during, and after an outbreak by enabling an enhanced level of employee protection while maintaining critical operations with disciplined and effective management. Organizational preparedness to respond to and minimize the impact of a pandemic at various threat levels is critical to the sustainability of any business.

The Business Continuity Management Practice of Marsh Risk Consulting (MRC) has developed a proprietary Pandemic Planning Framework to help ensure all the pertinent elements within a program are proactively addressed and developed. Marsh has evolved this framework over the past five years while utilizing it with many clients to support their pandemic planning initiatives. It has proven to be effective in highlighting and delivering the necessary components of a successful program,
while maintaining a pragmatic approach to the realities of response plan development.