A worldwide flu pandemic could wipe out as many as 11 million people in the EU and cause significant damage to the world's businesses unless contingency plans are put in place, a public health specialist has warned.
Speaking in an interview after the European Insurance Forum in Dublin, Steve Hajioff, a medicine graduate who has worked with institutions such as the London School of Economics and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, urged companies to instigate contingency plans to protect their businesses when the expected influenza pandemic strikes.
Mr Hajioff, who has also worked as a consultant to the World Health Organisation, said it was not a case of if, but rather when a pandemic would strike. He said it was 37 years since there had been a pandemic and the longest recorded interval between outbreaks was 39 years.
It is most likely to be a type of influenza, which may be related to the avian flu that has recently been spreading from the east across Europe, but it may also be a simple form of the flu virus, he said. There are about 480 million people in the EU.
Mr Hajioff said that any pandemic is forecast to put about 40 per cent of the population out of work. Consequently businesses needed to ensure that several people were trained to carry out each of the company's functions.
He also said it was important to have back up operations for energy and telephone supplies in the case of an emergency.
"The cost of instigating a pandemic protection plan is a few thousands here and a few thousands there, while the cost of not instigating one is business failure," said Mr Hajioff.
The purpose of the forum - held at Dublin's Four Seasons Hotel - was to look at the main issues facing the insurance industry, with a particular focus on catastrophe management.
Sarah Goddard, chief executive of Dublin International Insurance and Management Association, said last year insurers paid out $80 billion (€66 billion) in claims for hurricanes alone and the subject of natural catastrophes was increasingly topical.
