The main thing that a pandemic plan gives you that data recover (DR) and business continuity (BC) plans don't, is handling of sustained outages over large geographic areas.  In a pandemic plan to account for time frames more than you would in a DR or BC plan.  The DR and BC plans may be more oriented to a single incident that occurs during a period of time, usually short.  A pandemic has the ability to spread across areas.  Using the swine flu as an example, Mexico was first affected, and in the U.S., Texas saw a large impact.  Schools in New York, Michigan and other parts of the country were closed for days due to outbreak fears.  The staff of those school districts to manage this crisis effectively, would put a pandemic plan into effect as they are not recovering from a disaster and although could be considered a part of BC, it is separate and would b treated that way.

Dave,

To address a statement in your last post. Pandemics are actually not few and far between. There are both regional and global pandemics. Additionally global pandemics tend to persist for a long time, which is what makes them so much of a problem. There's plenty of time for them to spread. A company's exposure to pandemic bugs depends greatly on the country, available health services, infrastucture (Such as clean drinking water), Environment, etc...  Also, one would deal with these specific illnesses in different ways. It is so much to think of that I could see a pandemic plan getting completely out of control. On that weighted threat list we spoke of in class, a global pandemic would be far less likely than regional.

Here's a few  examples of regional and global pandemics recent, and that are ongoing and have persisted for some time...

Malaria - (Each year 350–500 million cases of malaria occur worldwide, and over one million people die,)

HIV/AIDS - (It is currently unknown exactly how many people have this, but it is estimated that 30-40 milion people are infected worldwide)

SARS - (Remember that?)

Cholera - (All over the world, usually related to drinking water and in countries with poor infrastucture- here's an interesting link -- http://www.gamapserver.who.int/mapLibrary/Files/Maps/Global_ChoeraCases_ITHRiskMap.png)

TB - (effects about one third of the worlds population - and new infections occur at a rate of one per second!)

While there seems to much discussion of management approvals and logostics, the real financial and opportunity cost of a pandemic results from the high probability of the loss of key employees, vendors and customers over an extended period of time.

Regarding technology and security, the primary impact of a pandemic on the infrastructure should be minimal to the extent that systems are truly automated. It is NOT the network infrastructure as would primarily be the case with a system failure (regardless of cause) or the lack of system availability (DDoS etc.) that will limit business opertions. The pandemic plan must analyze very closely how limited mobility and personnel losses will impact the business' ability to operate normally.

Corporations that are geographically dispersed may benefit from a pandemic that can somehow be limited to a gographical area, with modern travel this may not be feasible. I believe that a robust pandemic plan will not only look to ensure the safely of the workforce but will seek to take full advatneg of system automation, employee cross training and remote systems access + management capabilities!