How can you help protect your organization

Plan now to help your organization later

plan now.

Develop an internal pandemic planning taskforce and review the following checklists to include as part of your organization's pandemic plan:

CDC Guidelines - http://www.pandemicflu.gov/plan/businesschecklist.html
Trust for America's Health - www.healthyamericans.org

Engage your business continuity/preparedness department to expand their mission to include pandemic planning

Work with a business preparedness advisory organization to assist you in preparing your organization for an influenza pandemic

Ten steps your organization can take now²⁰

Check that existing contingency plans are applicable to a pandemic. In particular, check to see that core business activities can be sustained over several weeks.

Plan accordingly for interruptions of essential governmental services like sanitation, water, power, and disruptions to the food supply.

Identify your company's essential functions and the individuals who perform them. The absence of these individuals could seriously impair business continuity.

Build in the training redundancy necessary to ensure that their work can be done in the event of an absentee rate of 25% to 30%.

Maintain a healthy work environment by ensuring adequate air circulation and posting tips on how to stop the spread of germs at work.

Promote hand and respiratory hygiene. Ensure wide and easy availability of alcohol-based hand sanitizer products.

Determine which outside activities are critical to maintaining operations and develop alternatives in case they cannot function normally. For example, what transportation systems are needed to provide essential materials? Does the business operate on "just in time" inventory or is there typically some reserve?

Establish or expand policies and tools that enable employees to work from home with appropriate security and network access to applications.

Expand online and self-service options for customers and business partners. Tell the workforce about the threat of pandemic flu and the steps the company is taking to prepare for it. In emergencies, employees demonstrate an increased tendency to listen to their employer, so clear and frequent communication is essential.

Update sick leave and family and medical leave policies and communicate with employees about the importance of staying away from the workplace if they become ill. Concern about lost wages is the largest deterrent to self-quarantine.

Find out what other organizations are doing to prepare for a pandemic

Learn what role TAMIFLU could play in a pandemic

Indications

TAMIFLU is indicated for the treatment of uncomplicated influenza caused by viruses types A and B in patients 1 year and older who have been symptomatic for no more than 2 days.

TAMIFLU is also indicated for the prophylaxis of influenza in patients 1 year and older.

TAMIFLU is not a substitute for early and annual vaccination as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).

Prescribers should consider available information on influenza drug susceptibility patterns and treatment effects when deciding whether to use TAMIFLU.

Safety Information

There is no evidence for efficacy against any illness caused by agents other than influenza types A and B.

Treatment efficacy in subjects with chronic cardiac and/or respiratory disease has not been established. No difference in the incidence of complications was observed between the treatment and placebo groups in this population.

No information is available regarding treatment of influenza in patients at imminent risk of requiring hospitalization.

Efficacy of TAMIFLU has not been established in immunocompromised patients.

Safety and efficacy of repeated treatment or prophylaxis courses have not been studied.

Influenza can be associated with a variety of neurologic and behavioral symptoms, which can include events such as hallucinations, delirium and abnormal behavior, in some cases resulting in fatal outcomes. These events may occur in the setting of encephalitis or encephalopathy but can occur without obvious severe disease. There have been postmarketing reports (mostly from Japan) of delirium and abnormal behavior leading to injury, and in some cases resulting in fatal outcomes, in patients with influenza who were receiving TAMIFLU. Because these events were reported voluntarily during clinical practice, estimates of frequency cannot be made but they appear to be uncommon based on TAMIFLU usage data. These events were reported primarily among pediatric patients and often had an abrupt onset and rapid resolution. The contribution of TAMIFLU to these events has not been established. Patients with influenza should be closely monitored for signs of abnormal behavior. If neuropsychiatric symptoms occur, the risks and benefits of continuing treatment should be evaluated for each patient.

In postmarketing experience, rare cases of anaphylaxis and serious skin reactions, including toxic epidermal necrolysis, Stevens-Johnson syndrome and erythema multiforme, have been reported with TAMIFLU.

The most common adverse events reported >1% of patients treated with TAMIFLU and more commonly than in patients treated with placebo are:

Treatment of adult and pediatric patients - nausea, vomiting.
Prophylaxis of adult and pediatric patients - nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain.

Vaccination is considered the first line of defense against influenza.

Please see TAMIFLU full Prescribing Information for additional safety information.

Plan now to help your organization later

Ten steps your organization can take now20

Ten steps your organization can take now²⁰