tetano
Editor, Senior Moderator
Public health specialists have warned Australia is drastically under-prepared for influenza and other pandemics.
Experts meeting in Canberra yesterday said Australia was failing to monitor outbreaks of communicable disease, including keeping figures on the number of flu-related deaths across the country.
Heath Kelly, of the Victorian Infectious Disease Reference Laboratory, said the Federal Government's decision to axe an Australian National University program was particularly galling.
He believed slashing $1.9million from the ANU program, credited with monitoring and controlling pandemic diseases including H1N1 (the so-called ''swine flu'' virus) and severe acute respiratory syndrome, would worsen the country's capacity to respond to outbreaks.
The Commonwealth-funded program recruited outstanding students from the Master of Applied Epidemiology course to work as a set of mobile teams, which monitor, prevent and control the outbreak of dangerous communicable diseases.
The funding cuts will force the program's closure at the end of this year.
''The pandemic's gone, the emergency's gone, so they think we don't need it any more but a lot of us think that's short-sighted because if the pandemic returns we have to build the system up again,'' Professor Kelly said.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Ageing said the Government acknowledged the ''important contribution'' the ANU program had made, but it was ''but one course among many now available in Australia''.
''Public health education, research and training in Australia now has an international profile and Australia has a strong leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region ...
''Australian institutions are now in a position to seek funding within the normal competitive tertiary education environment and the special subsidy for masters of public health courses is no longer justified.''
The last Australian pandemic occured in 2009, when 37,562 confirmed swine flu cases and 191 deaths were recorded.
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/new...a-at-risk-from-pandemics-experts/2123907.aspx
Experts meeting in Canberra yesterday said Australia was failing to monitor outbreaks of communicable disease, including keeping figures on the number of flu-related deaths across the country.
Heath Kelly, of the Victorian Infectious Disease Reference Laboratory, said the Federal Government's decision to axe an Australian National University program was particularly galling.
He believed slashing $1.9million from the ANU program, credited with monitoring and controlling pandemic diseases including H1N1 (the so-called ''swine flu'' virus) and severe acute respiratory syndrome, would worsen the country's capacity to respond to outbreaks.
The Commonwealth-funded program recruited outstanding students from the Master of Applied Epidemiology course to work as a set of mobile teams, which monitor, prevent and control the outbreak of dangerous communicable diseases.
The funding cuts will force the program's closure at the end of this year.
''The pandemic's gone, the emergency's gone, so they think we don't need it any more but a lot of us think that's short-sighted because if the pandemic returns we have to build the system up again,'' Professor Kelly said.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Ageing said the Government acknowledged the ''important contribution'' the ANU program had made, but it was ''but one course among many now available in Australia''.
''Public health education, research and training in Australia now has an international profile and Australia has a strong leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region ...
''Australian institutions are now in a position to seek funding within the normal competitive tertiary education environment and the special subsidy for masters of public health courses is no longer justified.''
The last Australian pandemic occured in 2009, when 37,562 confirmed swine flu cases and 191 deaths were recorded.
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/new...a-at-risk-from-pandemics-experts/2123907.aspx