Riverside Consulting have put together this useful piece for anyone who has to deal with questions from staff relating to the cases of swine flu we are seeing:
You may have heard the very recent confirmation of a case of Swine Flu, otherwise known as H1N1 in Spain. This follows on from the previously confirmed cases in Mexico, Canada and the USA. We are still waiting to hear about the possible cases in Scotland.
The new strain appears vulnerable to anti-viral drugs such as Tamiflu and Relenza if it is caught in its early days. The Government has stockpiled Tamiflu in this country. We do not know yet whether the flu vaccine given this winter will offer us any protection for this strain.
Should the situation develop in the UK, your employees will soon begin to ask what they are supposed to do and, as proven with the SARS pandemic, early communications controls panic.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) monitors the situation around the world and has a web site that details the current pandemic alert status; you will see if you follow the link below that we are currently at an alert level 4:
World Health Organization : Current WHO phase of pandemic alert
The World Health Organisation will be reviewing the alert status regularly, but in the meantime you may wish to start thinking about the actions you may need to take should the situation escalate; such as looking at work related travel to areas that have had confirmed cases, looking at the toilet facilities, educating employees on good hygiene and cross contamination procedures such as telephone hygiene, good hand washing techniques, using a tissue when sneezing etc.
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