Is your business pandemic-ready?

• Author: Ross, Ian
• Position: Occupational health planning

It's too late to begin planning for a flu pandemic when the first employee goes down sick or the World Health Organization declares an emergency, says a leading workplace hazards expert. "This does take time, so now is the time to start planning," says Joan Burton, the Industrial Accident Prevention Association's health strategy manager. Should a pandemic influenza outbreak occur, businesses will play a vital role in protecting the health of their employees as well as limiting their exposure to the community and protecting the economy. Certain organizations like Ontario Power Generation that handle critical infrastructure service such as power, telecommunications and health care-related institutions have a legislated responsibility to continue operating in a crisis with an emergency plan.

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While health care experts have little idea when a pandemic flu will strike North America, how bad it will be, or what form it will take, many say the H5N1 bird flu looks like a likely candidate.

Unlike SARS in 2003, ordinary businesses weren't affected that much since the disease was contained in Toronto hospitals. But Burton says flu strains are everywhere.

One topic she lectures on is the misunderstandings about how the flu spreads.

Of the five ways any infectious disease can spread, the flu has only two of them, by direct and indirect contact, through eyes, nose and mouth, and by droplet. But it's not airborne.

A flu-sufferer who's coughing or sneezing creates large droplets that fall to the ground. Burton says that won't effect someone on the far side of a room.

With airborne diseases like tuberculosis, measles or mumps, the droplets are tiny particles, less than five microns in size, that can float in the air for hours.

"A sick person can be coughing and sneezing, leave the room, and someone else catches the virus ten minutes later still floating around," says Burton. But that doesn't happen with the flu.

The flu virus can live up to 24 to 48 hours on hard surfaces like counter tops and doorknobs.

What businesses can do to protect themselves is pay attention to "environmental cleaning" to cover the droplet spread and keep respectable social distances, says Burton.

People sharing workstations and phones are important areas that require attention.

After SARS, Burton found some companies bought large volumes of anti-bacterial soap, but ordinary soap and water works still works best. Hand sanitizers are a good idea when you can't...