The World Health Report 2007 - A Safer Future: Global Public Health Security in the 21st Century marks a turning point in the history of public health, and signals what could be one of the biggest advances in health security in half a century. It shows how the world is at increasing risk of facing many new and recurring threats, including disease outbreaks, epidemics, industrial accidents, natural disasters and other health emergencies that can rapidly become threats to global public health security.

As the events illustrated in this report show, global health security, or the lack of it, may also have an impact on economic or political stability, trade, tourism, access to goods and services and, if they occur repeatedly, on demographic stability. The report also explains how the revised International Health Regulations (2005), which came into force this year, help countries work together to identify risks and act to contain and control them.

Universal vulnerability

In our increasingly interconnected world, new diseases are emerging at an unprecedented rate, often with the ability to cross borders rapidly and spread due to, among other reasons, the increased mobility of populations. Since 1967, at least 39 new pathogens have been identified, including HIV, Ebola hemorrhagic fever and SARS. Other centuries-old threats, such as pandemic influenza and tuberculosis, continue to pose a threat to health through a combination of mutation, rising resistance to antimicrobial medicines and weak health systems.  New health threats have also emerged, linked to potential terrorist attacks, chemical incidents and radionuclear accidents.

"Given today's universal vulnerability to these threats, better security calls for global solidarity," said Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of WHO. "International public health security is both a collective aspiration and a mutual responsibility. The new watchwords are diplomacy, cooperation, transparency and preparedness."

Six key recommendations

This year's World Health Report concludes with six key recommendations to secure the highest level of global public health security:

1. Full implementation of the revised International Health Regulations (IHR 2005) by all countries;
2. Global cooperation in surveillance and outbreak alert and response;
3. Open sharing of knowledge, technologies and materials, including viruses and other laboratory samples, necessary to optimize secure global public health;
4. Global responsibility for capacity building within the public health infrastructure of all countries;
5. Cross-sector collaboration within governments; and
6. Increased global and national resources for training, surveillance, laboratory capacity, response networks, and prevention campaigns.

How do companies respond?

Gil Meyer directs crisis management and corporate preparedness for DuPont.  Based on his experience in these key emergency planning and response areas, he offers the following insights on how companies can prepare their response to current and emerging threats to workplace and global health security.

Since no one can predict with any level of precision what the next big threat is, businesses should consider conducting a vulnerability analysis to predict the most significant dangers that can affect the organization. For example, if your plant operations are located on an earthquake fault line, near a hurricane coast or in a tornado zone, you need to understand the level of probability of an occurrence and plan accordingly. 

Organizations must consider not only the probability and the magnitude of the impact if an event does occur, but their ability to influence the situation. 

But a successful program is much more comprehensive than response to an emergency or acute natural disaster.  The key to successful preparedness and response is to have a flexible and resilient program, which allows your organization to respond to a wide range of situations – whether it is a hurricane, pandemic, product quality issue or a kidnapping. 

Communication is also a big challenge, particularly for today’s global organizations with mobile workforces; therefore, the program and its implementation must work across languages and cultures.  And in the event of a health threat or disaster, it is important to be able to move rapidly into position and start managing a situation. Since the initial minutes and hours are really precious in an emergency situation, it should not take hours to notify your team.  That’s where designing and implementing an enhanced notification process is essential. 

How do companies maintain a high level of safety performance during times of crisis?

Ray Beaudry, Director Global Emergency Planning, Preparedness, Training and Response, has over 30 years experience related to emergency response for DuPont.  “The ‘Goal of Zero’ is possible, and all incidents are preventable, even in emergency situations,” shared Beaudry.  “We base every response on our core safety value.  Responding to an incident is much like implementing a safety program.  We assess the complete situation to understand the nature of the problem, analyze the risk and envision the scenarios and ramifications.  Then we’ll develop our safety and action plans and implement.”

Beaudry also noted that in every incident, there is a lesson to be learned.  Following each emergency situation, it is critical to perform a root cause analysis to explore why it happened, then attempt to put corrective measures in place.   Do you have the right tools, equipment, training and attitudes in place to respond safely the next time?

How do companies prepare to deal with repercussions?

According to Meyer, a company’s Employee Assistance Program is a critical component of a comprehensive medical and preparedness program. Special aspects must be designed to support employees who are impacted by a traumatic situation or disaster, such as loss of life or home.  Consider having qualified professionals on call and ready to assist affected employees.

Scenario planning is a valuable tool that can help identify other key issues. What are your clients and customers doing in the event of a health threat?  What can you do to help?  Beaudry shared that there are a variety of different plans that may need to be developed, such as safety, evacuation, community and operations.  

Even when faced with uncontrollable health and security events, having the right type of response and preparedness program in place now for your organization will allow a response at an appropriate level when a threat is detected, or an event occurs.  That way you’ll be giving your organization and employees the appropriate resources needed to manage a threatening situation successfully, and safely.