Northland Civil Defence Emergency Management Plan, 2010

HUMAN DISEASEOverviewHazardLikelihood (B)HazardConsequence (3)How do wemanage this risk?Infectious disease pandemics are characterised by the global spread of a new type ofvirus that can cause unusually high rates of illness and mortality for an extendedperiod of time. The 2009 influenza A (H1N1) demonstrated how quickly moderntransportation can facilitate the spread of a disease.Pandemics have the potential to manifest as a loss of human capability. They affectthe ability of society and the economy to function normally, and can indirectly lead toa subsequent deterioration of infrastructure services. The impacts would occur at alocal, regional, national and international level with assistance unlikely to be availableoutside affected areas.An epidemic has the ability to severely affect one or more region but would possiblynot require a whole of government response but could require the assistance of theCDEM Group. Some diseases, other than influenza which would require a whole ofgovernment response include zoonotic diseases (those that are transmissible fromanimals to humans) such as BSE (mad cow disease) and rabies.Not known, but a pandemic of the scale described below is rated as ‘likely’.Social: Large scale illness and fatalities. Pandemic model used as basis for this riskassessment is 40% ill over 8 weeks with 2% of those illnesses fatal. A second wavewill have further impacts.Economic: Major economic disruption to all sectors due to loss of staff.Built: Some diisruption may occur to infrastructure services – limited staff to respondto outages and operate critical facilities such as the Refinery.Risk of human epidemic is primarily managed by the Ministry of Health. In responseto the 2009 influenza A (H1N1) influenza the Group revised its Pandemic Plan toensure it captured the research, planning and preparation undertaken in the Healthsector which is based on the World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines andprevious pandemic experiences in New Zealand.What moreshould we bedoing?Continued public education programmesWhat is thefuture risk?Increasing globalisation and travel likely to increase risks of global pandemicspread.Northland Civil Defence Emergency Management Plan, 2010-2015 Page 85