Business Continuity and the Pandemic Threat

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

 

“If an alien visited Earth, they would take some note of humans, but probably spend most of their time trying to understand the dominant form of life on our planet –microorganisms like bacteria and viruses.” – Nathan Wolfe, Virologist

HG Wells is said to have completed writing his classic novel The War of the Worlds in 1897. The storyline is that the Martians had invaded the Earth and humans found themselves completely at their mercy. While the armed forces of the day met the invaders in a head to head struggle, even using the latest state of the art military hardware available at the end of the 19^th century, their efforts to defeat the invaders proved to be totally futile. The Martians, however, were finally beaten ...