Melissa Dudley
A proactive approach to local and international disease threats is an essential and often overlooked safeguard to business productivity and duty of care. Human capital is arguably worth more to a business than tangible assets, because it is often the key competitive advantage that distinguishes a business in the marketplace.
Infectious diseases are a constant threat to productivity, since they erode and diminish human capital. However, businesses that monitor infectious disease threats and couple this with a proactive healthcare approach are often able to avoid such threats to productivity.
While vaccinations are important to protect individual human capital, they are critical for broader, continued corporate productivity. Vaccinations have a direct effect on individuals by providing them with a defense, or immunity, against disease.
Yet, vaccinations also have an indirect protective effect on other individuals in the corporate setting. For example, when a high proportion of employees are vaccinated, they potentially prevent the spread of disease within the workplace by establishing a protective barrier around those who are not vaccinated and/or have not built up sufficient defenses against disease. In the science community, we call this concept herd immunity.
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International travellers should ensure that they are up to date on some vaccines regardless of their destination.
These include
- Chickenpox (varicella)
- Hepatitis A
- Hepatitis B
- Influenza
- Measles, mumps, rubella (MMR)
- Pertussis (whooping cough)
- Pneumococcal pneumonia
- Tetanus and diphtheria
It is important to note that healthcare providers will likely add other vaccinations to these, such as yellow fever and Japanese encephalitis, if required by the traveller's host country and/or if the disease is endemic in the destination country.
Furthermore, employers should encourage all international travellers to contact a physician who has expertise in travel medicine four to six weeks prior to travel. This will allow enough time for the traveller to complete any vaccine series as well as give their body time to build up immunity.
Infectious diseases have the potential to greatly impact business productivity by eroding and diminishing human capital on an individual and corporate level. Since infectious diseases are a constant threat to the bottom line of every business, it is imperative that businesses monitor local and international disease threats and adopt proactive healthcare measures. For that reason, thoughtful proactive disease prevention protocols are key to eliminating threats posed by local and international infectious diseases.
Find out more about traveller health and duty of care at the Responsible Travel Management conference at Central Hall Westminster in London on 22 October.