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FORT WORTH, Texas, May 16 /PRNewswire/ -- George Abercrombie, president and chief executive officer, Hoffmann-La Roche Inc., told more than 200 Fort Worth business leaders today at a Rotary Club of Fort Worth luncheon that the threat of a pandemic flu presents businesses with challenges unlike those anticipated with traditional emergency preparedness plans.
"While businesses are all too familiar with preparing for potential disasters such as floods or tornadoes," according to Abercrombie, "local businesses also need to look at the special challenges posed by the potential of a public health crisis caused by a global influenza pandemic."
Abercrombie, who shared details of Roche's own plans to safeguard the health of its employees and business infrastructure during a pandemic flu outbreak, says that Texas's key industry sectors, including technology, aerospace and defense, manufacturing, biotechnology and life sciences, energy, petroleum refinery and chemical products, healthcare, real estate, finance, construction, real estate, and hospitality and food service would be among the hardest hit.
In March of 2007, Trust for America's Health released a report (funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts as part of the U.S. Pandemic Preparedness Initiative) estimating that Texas could face a potential financial loss of $55.8 billion as a result of a severe pandemic flu outbreak.
"Influenza pandemics are not static events like a hurricane or tornado, nor are they confined to a specific area. Pandemics come in multiple waves, each one affecting a given area from four to twelve weeks. During the first wave, officials expect 20 to 30% of people will become ill. Here in Tarrant County, that's 334,000 to 500,000 people who will get very sick in a very short period of time, inundating emergency rooms already strained to near capacity."
According to Abercrombie, experts believe that many businesses and
organizations would have difficulty maintainin
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