25Aug 06
Bird flu planning takes flight
Posted by Steven Deare @ 10:05 1 comments
Business continuity and disaster planning might seem hypothetical at times, but the finance sector is taking the threat of Avian (bird) flu, which has claimed many lives in Asia, very seriously.
A couple of months ago I heard the Commonwealth Bank's executive manager, group business continuity management, Robert Brigden-Jones address a seminar on disaster recovery.
Though I only touched on it at the time, Brigden-Jones mentioned moves afoot by the finance sector in Sydney to jointly develop business continuity plans for Avian (bird) flu.
The seriousness with which the finance sector is treating the issue came to light again at the recent Banktech conference in Sydney.
The Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority's (APRA) head of operational risk, Harvey Crapp, told attendees about industry-wide planning for Avian flu by a joint working group including APRA, the Reserve Bank and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.
APRA was to release a discussion paper on its members' readiness for Avian flu in the near future, he said.
However when I phoned the APRA employee responsible for the paper, I was told it may not even be released. The organisation didn't want to promise anything, I was told.
She did say, however, APRA was finding major finance institutions to be taking the bird flu threat "very seriously".
The sort of disaster planning we're talking about was illustrated by Todd Chappell, business continuity manager for Westpac, who presented a thorough business continuity framework. He showed how Citrix and IP telephony could benefit disaster recovery planning, without ever clearly saying Westpac were using them, or whether it was in response to the bird flu threat.
The finance institutions seem to be investing serious money into ensuring staff can work remotely should bird flu become reality in Australia. However, because of security sensitiveness, few wish to talk about it openly.
What have you heard?
3%
2%
I have tracked this flu since it appeared in mexico. ( 200 deaths - 100 buried before they realised)
I think Australia is acting a little to slow. The Swine flu might mix with normal flu, once this happens then it becomes a problem. Swine flu, and normal flu on there own are a mild form of the flu, when they mix together they can be deadly. Which is why if you have swine flu you should be quarantined . If you look at the figures there is a 2 % mortality rate. ( 2 deaths in 100 cases)
If you look at the news, all you seem to hear is that most cases are mild, is this because they dont want to alarm people?
150 cases on 29/5/09 - there will be over 10000 cases in the next 7 days if not contained now.
If every person only passes the flu on to 1 more person, see below....
150cases x 2 sat = 300 cases
300 cases x 2 sun =600 cases
600 cases x2 mon =1200 cases
1200 cases x2 tue = 2400 cases
2400 cases x2 wed =4800 cases
4800 cases x2 thur=9600 cases << 5th June 2009