ICCA: Leigh Harry's Statement on Swine Flu

ICCA Presiden Leigh Harry
(Photo: MCEC)

Professionalism not panic. The latest outbreak of "Swine 'Flu" has monopolised global headlines, just when some positive business stories were finally starting to appear about the stability and profitability of key banks and other global companies. Our sympathies go out to our ICCA colleagues in Mexico, who are likely to face the worst of the media attention in the short term, but we are all likely to suffer from both the reality of the current outbreak, and the fantasies of the shock-horror headline writers who will exploit and exaggerate this situation as they have done in the past.  The challenges of 2009 are now even more daunting.

How should we react as an industry? With calm professionalism, making sure we don't ignore the seriousness of this outbreak, but at the same time directing our clients to reputable, factual, recently updated sources of useful information, such as that provided by the World Health Organisation.

We should be putting into place the systems and processes that many of us adopted following the SARS crisis in 2002/2003.We should be updating our risk management and communication plans. We should be reassuring our corporate and association clients, and helping them to keep their delegates informed and motivated to attend forthcoming meetings.

It's important to retain a sense of perspective. The Director General of the WHO is stating that borders shouldn't be shut nor travel restricted.  Travellers are being advised not to travel only if they are already ill and to report any 'flu-like symptoms, but normal travel shouldn't be curtailed.

Whilst the Alert level has been raised to "4" on the 6-point pandemic scale WHO states that it could next go either up or down according to how the disease develops and spreads.It's a very serious situation, of course, but how many media outlets could be bothered to report that 25 April 2009 was World Malaria Day? A disease that afflicts tens of millions and kills more than a million victims each and every year, without ever gaining a mention on any newspaper's front page. And let's not forget that ordinary seasonal influenza kills between a quarter and a half million people each year.

Let's all hope that this doesn't evolve into a truly dreadful pandemic, and in meantime dedicate ourselves to keeping our clients informed about the truth in the most professional manner possible.

Leigh Harry
ICCA President
www.iccaworld.com