New model assesses pandemic risk

Risk Management Solutions (RMS) has launched the RMS Infectious Disease Model, the first commercially available probabilistic model for assessing the risk of influenza pandemics across multiple countries.The model, designed to help corporate risk managers, quantifies mortality and morbidity from nearly 2,000 potential pandemic influenza scenarios, says an RMS release.Factors that are taken into account include: likelihood of the pandemic occurring; infectiousness and lethality of the pandemic; demographic impact; location of outbreak; pandemic lifecycle; vaccine production; and national countermeasures. The model can be leveraged to allow corporate risk managers to understand the operational impact and estimated economic loss associated with a full range of influenza pandemic scenarios at the company-specific level, adds the release.Interest in pandemic flu has increased significantly due to the spread and lethality of the active H5N1 avian flu virus, and many fear that a reassortment may occur, resulting in a human-to-human transmissible virus and global pandemic, Derek Blum, vice president of emerging risk models for RMS, said in a statement.