Ministry warns NZ of possible bird flu pandemic

More than 30,000 people could die in the next influenza pandemic if it is as serious as the 1918 Spanish flu, the Ministry of Health says.

The figure is contained in planning documents published yesterday which also warn oil companies to beef up security to protect against social unrest during a pandemic and suggest the health sector will not be able to cope.

The grim forecast comes as Europe rushes to contain the bird flu virus, fearing it could mutate and trigger a pandemic. Scientists also are working on creating an urgent vaccine for humans.

The European Union has begun an exercise to test countries' readiness to deal with a health crisis which could arise if the disease mutates and spreads among humans.

The New Zealand Health Ministry figure for potential fatalities would make it the country's worst health crisis.

Previously published scenarios for a flu pandemic were based on the 1968 outbreak and suggested that between 1600 and 3700 could die.

Health officials were careful to say the new figure was not the ministry's projection or prediction. It was simply a mathematical model, in which New Zealand's experience of the 1918-1919 global outbreak was applied to the present population.

The 1918 pandemic infected 40 per cent of people in New Zealand, of whom 2 per cent died. More than 8000 died and about 40 million to 50 million worldwide.
Based on New Zealand's population of 4,107,159, the 1918 figures translate to 1.64 million becoming ill and 32,857 dying.

Until now, bird flu has mainly affected Asian countries but is spreading towards Western Europe as migrating birds infect poultry.

An outbreak was reported yesterday in Russia and a second in Romania, following one in Turkey and one suspected case in Greece.

Last night Taiwan confirmed the island's first case of infected birds in a container smuggled from China.

Of the 117 confirmed human cases since late 2003, 60 have died, a high death rate. There is little evidence yet of the virus spreading between humans. It is feared that if it changes to do this easily, it will become the next human flu pandemic.

Nobody knows how many people will be infected or die because there are so many unknowns.

Those things aside, Christchurch virologist Dr Lance Jennings said the 1918-based calculation was plausible.

Researchers had shown 10 days ago that the 1918 virus evolved from a bird flu, possibly through direct adaptation to humans.

"If that virus [the current bird flu strain] was to adapt to human-to-human transmission in its current form we are more likely to see a 1918 scenario. If it re-assorts [genetically] with another mammalian or human virus we are more likely to see 1957 or 1968 scenarios."

The Government is spending $26 million on stockpiling 835,000 courses of Tamiflu tablets, enough for one-fifth of the population.

The planning guides, published with the Ministry of Economic Development, are to help businesses, especially infrastructure companies such as electricity suppliers, avoid social chaos during a flu pandemic.

Officials, responding to concerns raised by oil firms about protecting plant and equipment in the event of "social unrest", advised them to make contingency arrangements with security companies.

The guides urge businesses to brace for up to half of all workers being off work for a fortnight and chart fictional scenarios of how a pandemic might unfold. In the first, following several weeks of unconfirmed reports of large clusters of human-to-human flu spread in two Asian countries, the World Health Organisation reports sudden deaths.

As information about the crisis unfolds, it takes just six hours to reach the point where the Cabinet's security committee directs New Zealand's borders be closed indefinitely.

Seven planes on their way to New Zealand continue. Their passengers and air crew are quarantined.

"Low-risk" New Zealanders are treated with drugs and allowed to enter. The rest are quarantined for eight days.

Another scenario describes the indefinite closure of schools, casinos and video stores, followed by "incidents" at stations set up to distribute anti-viral medication. The police and Army are asked to help.

The health sector, overwhelmed by the crisis, virtually gives up providing care directly, instead overseeing provision of care by volunteers.