In the event of a widespread outbreak of swine flu expected this autumn is your IT department ready and what are your business planning assumptions? Here are eight top tips to ensuring business continuity.

Continue reading Eight tips to ensure your business continuity plan is up to scratch

Tags: Business Continuity, pandemic planning, swine flu

The Government of Canada is taking steps to assist small and medium sized businesses respond to the current influenza pandemic, Minister of Health Leona Aglukkaq and Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer, Dr. David Butler-Jones, announced.

Continue reading Government of Canada Supports Business Continuity Planning for Small and Medium Size Businesses

Tags: Canada, h1n1, ICID, International Centre for Infectious Diseases, pandemic flu, smb, SME

It’s human nature. It is only when some type of disaster or emergency occurs that people look at how prepared they are to endure it and respond to it. Many times, that’s too late.

Continue reading Can your firm handle a disaster?

Tags: Business Continuity, h1n1, pandemic plan

VoiceNation, a provider of outsourced voice telephony and disaster recovery solutions, conducted asurvey of Fortune 500 companies regarding their business continuity planning for voice communication.

Continue reading Survey Reveals the Need for Business Continuity Planning

Tags: Business Continuity, pandemic planning, statistics, survey

Here are some Pandemic Planning Resource Links I have found particularly useful.

Continue reading Pandemic Planning Resource Links: A Compilation

Tags: pandemic planning, pandemic preparedness

The Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing has published new pandemic planning guidelines. The ‘Australian Health Management Plan for Pandemic Influenza’ is an update on similar guidance published in 2006.

Continue reading Australian Health Management Plan for Pandemic Influenza

Tags: influenza, international Australia, pandemic planning

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Coordinating Office of Terrorism Preparedness and Emergency Response recently released a report, Public Health Preparedness: Strengthening CDC’s Emergency Response.

Continue reading Report: CDC Highlights Challenges Preparing for Public Health Emergencies

Tags: emergency preparedness, pandemic planning, public health preparedness, research

Reliable mining and delivery of coal, which generates nearly half the U.S.’s electricity, must be safeguarded to keep water and sewerage systems running, lights on, and vaccine and critical drugs available during a pandemic, according to a new University of Minnesota report.

To date, no state or federal plan has adequately addressed how to protect the health of coal miners and the people who support their work during a pandemic, an oversight that must be corrected, said one of the authors, international infectious disease expert Michael T. Osterholm, Ph.D., MPH, in Pandemic Influenza, Electricity, and the Coal Supply: Addressing Crucial Preparedness Gaps in the United States.

Continue reading Report: U.S. Electric Supply Vulnerable During a Pandemic

Tags: emergency power, pandemic preparedness

New research, gathered by the Continuity Forum and funded by Roche Products Ltd, has found that three quarters of U.K. bosses (73 percent) are not supportive of pandemic planning activities.   This is despite the National Risk Register highlighting influenza pandemic as being the greatest single current threat to Britain.

Continue reading Research: Pandemic Planning Drops in U.K.

Tags: international, pandemic planning, pandemic preparedness, research

With the announcement of a new pledge of $320 million for avian and pandemic influenza assistance, U.S. support to international organizations and to more than 90 countries now totals $949 million. Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs, Paula Dobriansky, announced the U.S. pledge recently at the International Ministerial Conference on Avian and Pandemic Influenza at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

Continue reading Global Avian/Pandemic Influenza Assistance from U.S. Approaches $1 Billion

Tags: pandemic preparedness

A paper which was published in the September issue of the Business Continuity Journal highlighted a significant gap in current pandemic planning guidance. Preparedness For A Flu Pandemic In Europe: Gaps In Advice by Alexandra Conseil and Dr. Richard Coker, of the Department of Public Health Policy, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, presented a gap analysis of European pandemic planning guidance. It concluded, among other things, that post-pandemic recovery planning is an area which almost all pandemic planning guidance has failed to address.

Continue reading Is Post-Pandemic Recovery Planning Being Ignored?

Tags: pandemic planning, Pandemics