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The influenza pandemic of 1918 killed 25 million people in 25 weeks, or about 2.5% to 5% of the world’s population.  Compare that to the death toll of AIDS, which has taken 25 million lives in 25 years. The flu pandemic of 1957 took 1 million lives before being quickly controlled.

Do we face another flu pandemic in the future? There are best-case scenarios that say another pandemic would simply show up as a flu season that would be more severe than usual. Worst-case scenarios suggest social disruption, a tottering global economy, and huge death tolls. It sounds like a movie, but the possibility is real.

A new alert from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recommends steps to prepare for a workplace threat that most employers and workers alike would not normally perceive as a danger. That’s the danger of flu.

The latest Texas worker safety alert suggests that, while the possibility of a pandemic may sound like fantasy, it’s potentially a real threat. Employers and employees both should prepare for such a threat, according to OSHA.

It can be difficult to see flu as a threat. Most of us associate it with that yearly annoyance they call seasonal flu. Every fall and winter, it seems, we come down with it. While its symptoms are usually irritating, they’re rarely life threatening, except for infants, the elderly, and people with fragile immune systems.

Still, pandemics are a possibility.

Currently, avian influenza is a concern. Known commonly as bird flu, it originates in wild birds. But it can spread to flocks of domestic birds like chickens and turkeys. In a few cases, it has spread from birds to people. It has never spread from person to person yet. That would take a new, mutated strain. If such a strain developed, a pandemic could occur.

It should be pointed out, however, that there are no new strains of flu currently, and no pandemic exists in the world today.

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