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  • Christchurch City Council

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/thepres...a15175,00.html

    Local government will have an important role to play in keeping the country going if a bird-flu pandemic strikes New Zealand, the Christchurch City Council has been told.
    Yesterday, the council was briefed by Chief Medical Officer Dr Nigel Millar and Pegasus Health managing director Dr Paul McCormack about national contingency plans if an influenza pandemic struck the country.
    McCormack said planning was being done on a worst-case scenario, as it would be easier to scale back any response if a pandemic struck rather than try to increase a response.
    Millar stressed the virus that health officials were readying to combat did not yet exist, hence there was no vaccine available.
    However, if, as feared, the avian flu virus mutated to a form which could be transferred readily from human to human, its impact could be devastating, Millar said.
    Measures put in place to minimise the spread of the virus could mean up to 40 per cent of medical staff would be unavailable to treat patients, a figure likely to coincide with when the greatest number were infected with the flu.
    The Ministry of Health estimates if the bird-flu scare did turn into a 1918-style pandemic, 40% of the population could become infected, with a 2% fatality rate. In Canterbury, that could mean 3721 people would die from the disease.
    Millar told councillors a pandemic was likely, but its severity was uncertain and its timing was unknown.
    A range of measures were being considered to manage such a pandemic, including closing schools and universities, restricting internal travel and closing borders, prohibiting public or private gatherings, and maintaining isolation of any uninfected area.
    Disruptive management and control measures might be needed for months, Millar warned.
    The council and community boards had an important role to play in maintaining essential services, he said. The community at large also had a vital role to play, as, in a worst-case scenario, people could be left to care for themselves for extended periods of time.
    Millar and McCormack said people needed to take heed of warnings, and prepare a cache of essential supplies they would need in an emergency.

  • #2
    Hepatitis control good practice for pandemic

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    Hepatitis control good practice for pandemic

    11 February 2006 <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="5"> <tbody><tr><td height="5"></td></tr></tbody> </table>
    The recent rapid spread of hepatitis A in Christchurch was a good practice run for pandemic planning, Canterbury medical officer of health Alistair Humphrey says.

    Humphrey told a meeting of the Canterbury District Health Board that, as with the hepatitis A infections, it was likely the first sign bird flu had arrived would be the discovery of a cluster of infected people.
    Once this cluster was isolated, it would be necessary to act swiftly to stamp it out, rather than looking for the source of the infection, Humphrey said.
    Canterbury chief medical officer Nigel Millar presented the meeting with an update on the board's pandemic plan.
    The action plan had been helped by a new "information portal" ? a website with pandemic information ? developed by Community and Public Health, Millar said.
    The portal allowed web-based sharing of information between organisations involved in the plan, he said.
    If the pandemic followed the pattern of the 1918 influenza period, it was likely there would be two major spikes in the expected 12-week peak of the outbreak.
    Planners hoped to flatten out the pandemic's peak by methods such as quarantine.
    A fundamental issue was for hospital and primary care staff to have confidence in their workplace, so they did not feel wary about coming to work, Millar said.
    They needed to have faith in plans to manage the pandemic, he said.
    The aim would be to treat people in the community as much as possible with hospitals as the last resort.
    This would ensure hospitals could continue to treat normally occurring acute illnesses such as heart attacks, Millar said.
    "Most people will get better from the flu with no health service input, but many will need reassurance," he said.
    Public education was necessary so people were able to recognise signs and symptoms and knew how to deal with these.
    Phone triage was the next step and plans were needed for an access phone number manned by doctors or nurses.
    Hospitals would be used only as a backup to community-based services, Millar said.

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