Swine Flu is proving exactly how rapidly infectious diseases can spread in the 21st century. It is a good thing it is Swine Flu and not Avian Flu because in the pandemic response plans of many countries and organizations are embedded assumptions of having weeks or months of watching a pandemic march across the globe.
Last night, just before I went to bed the story broke about 22 New Zealand teenagers and their teacher chaperones returning from a three week trip to Mexico and being placed under quarantine.
Ten influenza results confirmed in New Zealand teens
By ANNA CHALMERS – Stuff.co.nz
Ten students have tonight tested positive for influenza with health officials saying they consider it "likely" the pupils have swine flu.
[snip]
Health officials said tonight there were also three other high schools at risk with pupils from Northcote College having recently returned from Mexico, while Pinehurst and Westlake Girls High also had pupils in the United States and South America.
Health Minister Tony Ryall said most of the flu-affected pupils from Northcote College were on the "road to recovery", but other pupils had since come down with flu-like symptoms.
The affected pupils were being kept in isolation at home along with their family members.
One pupil had been hospitalised, but their condition was not serious, officials said.
Dr Darren Hunt, deputy director of public health, said it could take days till they knew whether the influenza was H1N1 swine flu, a subset of Influenza A.
Melbourne health authorities were tonight being contacted and would carry out the tests.
Until results were known, health officials are treating the situation as if the victims had swine flu and have upgraded the country’s health alert status from "code white" to "code yellow".
Doctors and nurses would also be stationed at Auckland International Airport from early tomorrow to screen for possible symptoms from travellers landing from North and Central America.
Officials would also seek fellow passengers onboard Air New Zealand’s NZ1 Los Angeles flight that landed early yesterday and carried the affected Northcote College pupils.
Mr Ryall encouraged passengers on the flight to consult with their GP or other health professional if they develop flu-like symptoms.
Middlemore Hospital had released tamiflu to the Auckland Regional Public Health Service to treat the patients and people who had been in contact with them.
The world is less than a week into this rapidly unfolding… dare I say pandemic. No, I believe it is still a wee bit too early to declare it as such. I’m waiting, some would say stubbornly, for those second and third generation infections, which, if they are going to show up should start showing up today and tomorrow. Others would say that I am attempting to rewrite the “rules” of what is and what is not a pandemic.
OK, I admit it, I am trying to rewrite the rules a little. Well, not really. As has been stated with H5N1: it is fully expected for the world to wobble in and out of different pandemic threat phases. Currently we are at level three, technically we are at four or five, where a novel communicable pathogen is spread to geographically separate regions/countries. Until the New Zealand teens are confirmed we have not met the “geographically separate” criteria. Mexico and the United States are no more geographically separate than France and Germany.
If New Zealand manages to extinguish the virus within its borders we have lost the “geographically separate” feature of pandemic threat level four or five… or six, at least for the time being. At least for the time being I’ll stubbornly hang onto threat level three until I have no choice but to let go. Then, I’ll probably spend a few days eagerly awaiting the waffling of the level back to this psychologically [and economically] important level three.
There is a psychological term for what I am doing: it’s called status quo norming, and there’s also positive thinking… or even the Ostrich Effect. Yes, I’m willfully practicing a bit of each of those. The difference is I know I’m doing it. I’m doing it deliberately. I’m also, in my own way, attempting to be intellectually honest about what a “pandemic” is. That whole “what the definition of ‘is’ is” thing.
My thoughts are with the ill young people and I wish them a very speedy recovery from what I hope will remain a minor bout of “the flu”.
TV news in NZ reported at least one of the infected teenagers played a soccer game the day before being quarantined. NZ has declared “Yellow” status. Nobody seems sure what this means, but at least it’s not red I guess.
phir,
Thank you for dropping in and sharing that.
It is heartening that thus far the disease profile is mild, and although a good thing, it also facilitates the spread of the virus the soccer game a case in point.
Yellow alert status: I don’t mean to laugh, but I don’t think anyone knows exactly what to do or how to respond, or what this or that means so early in all of this. All the plans are geared to genuine threat to life from a pandemic virus, not the threat of a mild case of the flu. Coupled with the fact that there is no comfort [yet] in assuming what is mild currently will remain so as the virus takes hold in a population.
I would welcome any updates you would wish to pass along….
Again, I wish all the young people a speedy and uneventful recovery.