How should we include planning for infectious disease outbreaks?
Planning for infectious disease outbreaks, such as a MRSA outbreak on campus, should be considered as part of your all-hazards plan. For acute outbreaks, such as MRSA, there will be many common planning components with other situations, such as delineating roles and responsibilities using the Incident Command System or identifying communications plans. The steps for response and remediation may have similar elements to other environmental hazards, as well, for example such as a chemical spill. These situations may only require that you involve different partners, such as the campus health center or the state or local health department, in your particular planning efforts related to these hazards. Planning For an outbreak with more long-term consequences, such as pandemic influenza, will share some of these common components but will have added layers of complexity due to the severity and duration of the threat. Guidance from the U.S. Government for mitigating a severe pandemic recommen
