Der Spiegel, the German news magazine, has reported that there may be as many as 200 million Indians carrying lethal forms of the superbug, MRSA. These are resistant to all normal antibiotics.
No deaths have been attributable to these forms, but it has been found also in Germany, UK, the U.S. and Israel. Normally, it is young, healthy people who contract the illness. It usually spreads through contact.
There were two outbreaks of the Norovirus this weekend on cruise ships in Florida. On Saturday, the Princess Cruise Lines’ Crown Princess arrived in Port Everglades after a one-week cruise. 140 passengers and 18 crew members had gotten sick on this voyage. The disease is passed by contact with infected people, items they touch, such as utensils or food in buffets, and human waste. The passengers arriving on Saturday to leave on the Crown Princess were taken to the Broward Convention Center to await boarding. While there they were given letters explaining the illness, what was being done to clean the ship and telling them the departure would be delayed.
They were also asked to complete documents that asked whether they had any symptoms of a cold or gastrointestinal illness. Standard practice is for passengers who admit to such symptoms to be given a medical exam, and possibly be denied boarding, in an effort to prevent another outbreak.
The exercise was repeated again on Sunday for the Ruby Princess. It was reported that 100 passengers and crew were infected on that ship.
Both ships were extensively disinfected including all passenger cabins and public areas, including high-touch surfaces.
There is now a recall in place for Romaine lettuce shipped to more than 20 states (and into Canada) from California. Nearly 2,500 cartons has been recalled after a random sample tested positive for Listeria. The contamination was discovered when a sample was taken as part of a random check.
The recalled product was shipped to a wholesale food distributor in Oregon. All the bags have “use by” date of Sept. 29. The chopped and shredded romaine lettuce was then shipped to several other U.S. states and to Alberta, said True Leaf Farms in a statement on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s website.
There have been no reported illnesses to date. Listeria can cause listeriosis, a rare but serious illness. Listeriosis usually appears as mild flu-like illness and symptoms can include vomiting, nausea, cramps, severe headache, constipation or fever.
Flu season is approaching, and health officials are encouraging people of all ages to get their annual flu vaccine.
This year’s vaccine offers protection against three flu strains: H1N1, H3N2 and influenza B. These are the same three varieties covered by last year’s vaccine. Officials say the strength of the flu shot diminishes over time and it is important to have an annual vaccination for optimal protection.
Even if you feel like you don’t need a flu shot, think about getting the vaccine on behalf of those you know who are more vulnerable than you — grandchildren, friends and family.
Although the Southern Hemisphere had a moderate flu season, it is not yet known what the severity will be in the north. The northern influenza season usually begins in October and can last until May.
There have been sixteen reported deaths in the U.S. from listeria-infected cantaloupes. These cantaloupes come from Jensen Farms in Colorado. As many as 1 in 6 people are affected by food-borne illnesses annually in the U.S. And 3,000 people each year from this source.
72 people in 18 states have been affected. The gestation period is quite long, up to four weeks. This is the deadliest U.S. outbreak in 13 years.
More information is available at http://tv.ibtimes.com/listeria-deaths-on-the-rise-16-dead-from-contaminated-cantaloupe/2033.html
To stop the spread of the flu:
It’s almost impossible to not come into contact with influenza in spite of all precautions. Contact with flu is not as much of a problem as proliferation is.
Here are some recommendations to lessen proliferation:
1) Frequent hand-washing (well highlighted in all official communications).
2) “Hands-off-the-face” approach. Resist all temptations to touch any part of face.
3) Gargle twice a day with warm salt water (use Listerine if you don’t trust salt) (adults only). takes 2-3 days after initial infection in the throat/nasal cavity to proliferate and show characteristic symptoms. Simple gargling prevents proliferation. In a way, gargling with salt water has the same effect on a healthy individual that Tamiflu has on an infected one. Don’t underestimate this simple, inexpensive and powerful preventative method.
4) Clean your nostrils at least once every day with warm salt water. Not everybody may be good at using a Neti pot, but blowing the nose hard once a day and swabbing both nostrils with cotton swabs dipped in warm salt water is very effective in bringing down viral population.
5) Boost your natural immunity with foods that are rich in Vitamin C. If you have to supplement with Vitamin C tablets, make sure that it also has Zinc to boost absorption.
6) Drink as much of warm liquids (tea, coffee, etc) as you can. Drinking warm liquids has the same effect as gargling, but in the reverse direction. They wash off proliferating viruses from the throat into the stomach where they cannot survive, proliferate or do any harm.
With the flu season rapidly approaching, it is important to remind ourselves of the difference between cold and flu symptoms.
Fever
Coughing
Aches
Stuffy Nose
Chills
Fatigue
Sneezing
Sudden Symptoms
Headache
Sore Throat
Chest Discomfort
My consulting assignments have allowed me to work with many companies putting in IT Continuity solutions as part of their BCP strategy (or in some cases as a catalyst for a BCP strategy). The main planning scenarios involved loss of key sites and the movement of operations to recovery sites. The logistics for these ‘loss of site’ scenarios include recovery of physical assets, particularly IT infrastructure and data, office facilities and, of course, moving people to the new site.
In a flu pandemic, even the early stages, the primary concern is availability of personnel to carry on business. A fair assumption is that many people will not be coming into the office either because they are sick, caring for the sick or are avoiding being around people for fear of contagion, or have been mandated to stay home by the government.
The key question in flu pandemic planning is “how do we stay in business when most of our people at home?” Probably the most important thing a company can do to ensure operations during a pandemic is give the employees the technology and connectivity which will allow them to work from home if needed. Most businesses have the infrastructure to allow some of its employees to work from home, however very few have the capabilities to handle a large scale event such as a pandemic.
Here are some key points that you may want to ensure are present in your connectivity strategy:
1) Identify the key functions (this is usually done by the BCP team using a business impact analysis), systems and most importantly users.
2) Make the systems available remotely, usually through remote connectivity (VPN) services or web-based services such as Microsoft Remote Desktop solutions.
3) Ensure that the key users identified in step (1) can connect remotely and have the facilities and know how to do so (broadband, security keys, laptop, printer etc.)
4) A volume test should be performed at least once a year to determine if the system and bandwidth could handle the large volume of users connecting to the system at the same time.
There are many reasons why a company would be hesitant to initiate such a strategy, the most likely being the investment and potential for security breach, however one must weigh these concerns with the potential for the company being out of business for weeks if not months.
Well, it has been announced, again, that the E. coli in Europe originated at an organic farm in Northern Germany. To date, 33 people are known to have died and as many as 3,000 are reported to have fallen ill, although this number may be ten times higher as many people do not report their illnesses unless they have to go to a hospital.
With our integrated supply chains, the known cost of this outbreak could be as high as 600 million euros. And this is from vegetables alone. There likely will be many additional costs from such things as temporary job losses (farm workers, transportation, supermarkets, restaurants, processing plants), trucking and transportation, loss of consumer confidence in the entire food chain, now and into the future. And vegetables seem so innocent. Meat or eggs, even fruit, bugs vegetables ?
And the effects on the efforts of the bio-food industry should be factored in as well. Even though the intents are good, an incident like this could be a significant setback.
Should there be more vigilance ? The German government claims that nothing was done incorrectly on the farm in question, but that’s hard to believe. Something went wrong. Many of our societal systems are so integrated that a small error can have huge effects, as this one did.
It is now thought that German-grown bean sprouts may be the cause of the deadly E.coli outbreak. To date, 22 people have died and 2,000 ill people have been to hospital. It is likely that up to 20,000 have been sickened as most don’t go to hospital.
Reuters has reported that investigators have traced the supply patterns of the bean sprouts.
This E.coli can stick to intestinal walls and emit toxins; this can result in severe diarrhoea and kidney issues. Some patients have needed kidney dialysis.
