IFPMA publishes pandemic preparedness guidance

The International Federation of International Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA) has published a business continuity planning paper for global health care industries, to minimize the impact of a future influenza pandemic. The new IFPMA publication is entitled: ‘Pandemic Influenza Preparedness: Business continuity planning for the global healthcare industry’.

IFPMA Director General Dr. Harvey E. Bale said: “Like other sectors involved in the provision of health care, the pharmaceutical industry has a responsibility to prepare itself to continue key activities when the next influenza pandemic strikes. Realistic and thorough planning now can help companies to assure the continuity of production and distribution of essential medicines in the face of multiple challenges, including absent employees and difficult communications. To be effective, such planning will have to embrace all parts of the supply chain, right up to the patient. The next pandemic could be just around the corner, so this planning needs to be done now.”

The pandemic preparedness paper, prepared by the IFPMA’s Influenza Vaccine Supply International Task Force (IVS ITF), looks at planning in a number of key areas to ensure that organizations can continue essential activities in the event of a pandemic. A section on ‘Leadership and Staff Continuity’ looks at maintaining important decision-making and other functions within an organization, through measures such as determining the workforce critical for continued essential operations and identification of functions can be performed off-site. ‘Operational Continuity’ will require organizations to map the functions required to produce life saving and life sustaining products and documenting minimum resources required to run them. Entire supply chains will have to be considered, so planning for critical products must address the issue of ‘Supplier and Customer Continuity’, to ensure availability of raw materials and other production inputs, and to assure a functional distribution system.

Planning will need to be driven by the need to maintain ‘Public Health Continuity’, which will require forecasting of volumes of all products needed both to protect both healthy and ill alike against the pandemic (antivirals, vaccines, syringes, antibiotics, protective clothing, disinfectants, etc.) and to maintain other critical health care activities (essential medicines, diagnostics, devices, etc.).

Read the paper

•Date: 25th January 2007 • Region: World •Type: Article •Topic: Pandemic planning
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