Bird flu led to emergency plan

By REBECCA WALSH

New Zealand's plan to stop Sars dates back to the 1997 bird flu outbreak in Hong Kong which killed six people.

Christchurch clinical virologist Dr Lance Jennings, a member of New Zealand's pandemic planning committee, said that while there were emergency plans to deal with a major earthquake or plane crash, there had been little in place to deal with a national public health emergency.

"The issue usually blows up in the media at the same time as health professionals are learning and trying to work out how to deal with it ... We need to plan to try and keep one step ahead."

Dr Jennings, 54, who has spent years studying the common cold and influenza, is one of the leading figures in the plan to control the virus once it inevitably hits New Zealand shores.

After the 1997 bird flu outbreak, a national influenza pandemic action plan was put in place. Last year it was tested to see how the health services would cope with a novel virus - a one-day exercise involving district health boards and public health units that Dr Jennings described as "very successful". Now that plan is being used as the framework to deal with Sars.

Dr Jennings said a key part was keeping health professionals, the public and the media informed.

As soon as the first international warning about Sars came out on March 16, information was supplied immediately to health boards, public health units and after-hours surgeries.

Now information is being provided at borders - airlines have been told how to identify potential cases and people entering the country are given data about Sars. There are also plans to put nurses at every point of entry.

Dr Jennings said part of the plan involved limiting social disruption, whether that was through use of a vaccine (at the moment there is no vaccine for Sars) or closing schools.

"It's crippling the health system in Hong Kong. That's what we don't want to happen in New Zealand."