Report on the Schulich School of Business corporate risk managers' roundtable on pandemic preparedness : Corporate risk managers' roundtable on pandemic preparedness

However, authorities are concerned about the availability of scientists and funding to simulta- neously meet the vaccination needs for both the traditional and the new H1N1 viruses, possibly delaying the availability of the vaccine for the new virus. [...] ON PANDEMIC PREPAREDNESS the extent that identifying and assessing pandemic risk becomes a generally accepted practice within the corporate community, the unprepared may be found to be negligent and therefore liable to their stakeholders in the event a pandemic occurs. [...] Allison McGeer at Mount Sinai Hospital and University of Toronto – whose findings were presented at the Roundtable – estimates the probability of an influenza pandemic to be in the range of 8 to 20 per cent in 2009 and 14 to 41 per cent by 2012.4 If the probability of an influenza pandemic shock is considered significant and if its adverse impact can be alleviated, then firms may want to take meas [...] For a milder pandemic outbreak, the World Bank estimates the global GDP to shrink by about 0.7 per cent - slightly more than half the damage caused by the current recession.5 The World Bank estimates also show that three-quarters of the cost will occur in high- income countries and one-third of the cost will be caused by illness and absenteeism.6 The microeconomic impact on a single organization c [...] ON PANDEMIC PREPAREDNESS Furthermore, the WHO expressed “concern that the spread of the virus to the southern hemisphere could have different and perhaps more severe effects than seen in the northern hemisphere, particularly since the populations in the southern hemisphere are generally more vulnerable.