tetano
Editor, Senior Moderator
Intensive care units in New Zealand and Australia came close to turning seriously ill patients away during last year's swine flu pandemic, doctors say.
A year after the first cases of the virus were reported, researchers said it put 12 times the usual number of flu patients into intensive care in both countries last winter.
The Science Media Centre had asked leading New Zealand experts in pandemics and virology to reflect on the pandemic.
Although the virus was a mild disease for most people, many with more serious symptoms needed critical care, Sydney-based intensive care specialist Ian Seppelt said.
"Most years, in that three-month period there are about 60 to 70 cases of viral pneumonitis in all [New Zealand and Australian] units."
Last year there were 856 cases ? 119 in New Zealand ? with 760 of those attributed to swine flu, he said.
One-hundred-and-twenty-one of those patients had died.
"Our intensive care systems were quite heavily stressed but coped ? just.
"If we had had any greater activity of that virus we would not have been able to offer that service [to everyone]."
Unlike normal flu seasons, it was predominantly younger people with no underlying symptoms who needed intensive care, Dr Seppelt said.
Wellington Hospital intensive care unit director Peter Hicks said he had "never seen anything like it before where we've had a disease that's so significantly impacted all the intensive care services across the two countries".
New Zealand hospitals had not had to turn people away from intensive care units but "it got close".
The average length of stay in intensive care for a swine flu patient has been estimated at seven days. At a cost of about $3000 a day per patient, the financial cost of the virus to New Zealand's intensive care units was about $2.5 million.
Richard Hall, a virologist at the World Health Organisation National Influenza Centre in Upper Hutt, said criticisms that the Government and WHO response to swine flu was disproportionate were misplaced.
"The response from public health authorities and the virology laboratories within New Zealand has been held up as an example of a well-conducted response. Decisive action and intervention was taken by public health authorities in the early stages of the pandemic which helped to contain the initial incursions of the virus."
Four cases of swine flu have been confirmed in New Zealand so far this year, with virologists predicting a relatively mild flu season unless the swine flu strain mutates.
This year, about 800,000 people have received a flu shot, which includes a swine flu vaccination.
A Health Ministry spokeswoman said the country was currently a "Code White", meaning flu sufferers would not be isolated but were encouraged to stay at home until they were well, to limit the virus' spread.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/3621322/Swine-flu-drove-intensive-care-close-to-limit
A year after the first cases of the virus were reported, researchers said it put 12 times the usual number of flu patients into intensive care in both countries last winter.
The Science Media Centre had asked leading New Zealand experts in pandemics and virology to reflect on the pandemic.
Although the virus was a mild disease for most people, many with more serious symptoms needed critical care, Sydney-based intensive care specialist Ian Seppelt said.
"Most years, in that three-month period there are about 60 to 70 cases of viral pneumonitis in all [New Zealand and Australian] units."
Last year there were 856 cases ? 119 in New Zealand ? with 760 of those attributed to swine flu, he said.
One-hundred-and-twenty-one of those patients had died.
"Our intensive care systems were quite heavily stressed but coped ? just.
"If we had had any greater activity of that virus we would not have been able to offer that service [to everyone]."
Unlike normal flu seasons, it was predominantly younger people with no underlying symptoms who needed intensive care, Dr Seppelt said.
Wellington Hospital intensive care unit director Peter Hicks said he had "never seen anything like it before where we've had a disease that's so significantly impacted all the intensive care services across the two countries".
New Zealand hospitals had not had to turn people away from intensive care units but "it got close".
The average length of stay in intensive care for a swine flu patient has been estimated at seven days. At a cost of about $3000 a day per patient, the financial cost of the virus to New Zealand's intensive care units was about $2.5 million.
Richard Hall, a virologist at the World Health Organisation National Influenza Centre in Upper Hutt, said criticisms that the Government and WHO response to swine flu was disproportionate were misplaced.
"The response from public health authorities and the virology laboratories within New Zealand has been held up as an example of a well-conducted response. Decisive action and intervention was taken by public health authorities in the early stages of the pandemic which helped to contain the initial incursions of the virus."
Four cases of swine flu have been confirmed in New Zealand so far this year, with virologists predicting a relatively mild flu season unless the swine flu strain mutates.
This year, about 800,000 people have received a flu shot, which includes a swine flu vaccination.
A Health Ministry spokeswoman said the country was currently a "Code White", meaning flu sufferers would not be isolated but were encouraged to stay at home until they were well, to limit the virus' spread.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/3621322/Swine-flu-drove-intensive-care-close-to-limit