Christchurch City Council

[Sally Furniss]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/thepress/0,2106,3456144a15175,00.html

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]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.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]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. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]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. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]Millar stressed the virus that health officials were readying to combat did not yet exist, hence there was no vaccine available. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]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. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]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. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]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. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]Millar told councillors a pandemic was likely, but its severity was uncertain and its timing was unknown. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]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. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]Disruptive management and control measures might be needed for months, Millar warned. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]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. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]Millar and McCormack said people needed to take heed of warnings, and prepare a cache of essential supplies they would need in an emergency. [/FONT]

 

[Sally Furniss]

Hepatitis control good practice for pandemic

Hepatitis control good practice for pandemic

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http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/thepress/0,2106,3568304a6530,00.html
Hepatitis control good practice for pandemic

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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]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.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif] [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]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. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]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. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]Canterbury chief medical officer Nigel Millar presented the meeting with an update on the board's pandemic plan. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]The action plan had been helped by a new "information portal" ? a website with pandemic information ? developed by Community and Public Health, Millar said. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]The portal allowed web-based sharing of information between organisations involved in the plan, he said. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]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. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]Planners hoped to flatten out the pandemic's peak by methods such as quarantine. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]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. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]They needed to have faith in plans to manage the pandemic, he said. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]The aim would be to treat people in the community as much as possible with hospitals as the last resort. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]This would ensure hospitals could continue to treat normally occurring acute illnesses such as heart attacks, Millar said. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]"Most people will get better from the flu with no health service input, but many will need reassurance," he said. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]Public education was necessary so people were able to recognise signs and symptoms and knew how to deal with these. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]Phone triage was the next step and plans were needed for an access phone number manned by doctors or nurses. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]Hospitals would be used only as a backup to community-based services, Millar said. [/FONT]