Advice for
businesses about Swine Flu
Scottish Government is engaging closely with business organisations and
will continue to keep you informed of developments for the duration of the
outbreak. Our focus remains on ensuring our key sectors and indeed all
businesses are fully prepared to deal with the impacts of any outbreak.
The principle risk to the continuity of critical business functions in a
pandemic is the shortage of staff both within organisations and in
suppliers and subcontractors.
Your Business
To reduce the impact of these potential problems, you will need to
ensure that you have:
- identified critical
activities that must be maintained and, by implication, what work you
could defer
- identified the
resources you need to deliver these, particularly staff
- considered both
the number of staff and which specialist skills, knowledge or authority are
required
- made available the
information required by those staff who might be required to deputise for
others
- put in
place arrangements so you can implement changes in work priorities and reassign resources, in
order to maintain critical activities
- put in place
arrangements to maintain good communications
with your staff, customers and suppliers
Your suppliers
You should consider the effect of staff absences on the
suppliers and subcontractors on which you depend. Staff absences in suppliers may affect the
services they are able to provide and the availability of some raw materials.
Your staff - absences
To prevent spreading illness amongst your workforce, staff who think they may have influenza
should go home rather than trying to continue working. Staff should stay at home until they are
completely well and follow advice from NHS24 which is available at http://www.nhs24.com/content/default.asp.
Infection control
You should also review advice from Health and Safety Executive
concerning infection control measures in the workplace. This is available at http://www.hse.gov.uk/biosafety/diseases/pandflu.htm
Additional
information
Useful links
World Health Organisation - http://www.who.int/en/
Department of Health - http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/index.htm
Scottish Government - http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Home
Foreign & Commonwealth Office
- http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/travelling-and-living-overseas/travel-advice-by-country/north-central-america/mexico
Department for Business
- http://www.berr.gov.uk/whatwedo/sectors/infosec/infosecadvice/continuitymanagement/page33396.html
Influenza
virus
Influenza is an acute infectious
viral illness that spreads rapidly from person to person when in close contact.
Influenza is a respiratory illness with a wide range of symptoms
characterised by rapid onset of illness, fever, cough, headache, sore throat,
and aching muscles and joints.
The typical incubation period for non-pandemic influenza (the time
between catching influenza and showing symptoms) is one to four days, with an
average of two to three days.
People are most infectious soon after they develop symptoms though they
can continue to shed virus, for example in coughs and sneezes, for typically up
to five days (seven days in children).
Influenza
is one of the most difficult infectious diseases to control because the virus
spreads rapidly and easily from person to person. This is through two routes, direct
and indirect:
- Direct: via droplets expelled from
infected individuals (during talking, sneezing and coughing), which land
on the mucous membranes where they enter the body and cause disease.
- Indirect: via hands touching
contaminated surfaces or equipment and then touching the nose, mouth or
eyes.
Studies
suggest that influenza viruses may survive for some time on various surfaces,
surviving longer on hard non-porous surfaces than on soft porous materials.
Studies
have shown that careful hand hygiene, commercially available alcohol-based hand
disinfectant (i.e. alcohol hand gel) and domestic cleaning products can easily
deactivate the virus.
The best way to protect
yourself and others from the virus is to:
·
stay at home if you are ill
·
cover your nose and mouth when coughing or
sneezing, using a single use tissue
·
disposing of dirty tissues promptly and
carefully
·
maintaining good basic hygiene, for example
washing hands frequently with soap and water to reduce the spread of the virus
from your hands to face or to other people
·
cleaning hard surfaces (e.g. door handles)
frequently using a normal cleaning product
·
making sure your children follow this advice