Australia flu model: 20% morbidity = 80,000 hospitalized and 6000 deaths

Article from: The Australian

SWINE flu could infect one in five Australians, kill up to 6000 and hospitalise up to 80,000 if left unchecked and untreated, according to the first official modelling of the disease's potential spread.

Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon yesterday announced a hasty redesign of Australia's pandemic management plan and alert phases to keep the toll from the H1N1 flu strain below those levels, but acknowledged the disease had spread beyond her power to contain it.

She moved the country to a newly created pandemic phase of "protect", downgrading state and national border defences against the disease.

"Protect is a measured, reasonable and proportionate health response to the risk that the virus poses to the Australian community," Ms Roxon said.

"It is consistent with the message from the (World Health Organisation) when it lifted its pandemic alert to six, that countries will need to adjust their responses to accommodate the knowledge we now have that this disease is moderate in most cases."

Victoria, the epicentre of Australia's swine flu epidemic, switched its efforts to targeting those most at risk of the disease as long ago as June 3.

By Friday all states and territories will have joined it in abandoning mass tracing, testing and quarantining of swine flu contacts, scrapping in the process their seven-day school-exclusion policies for children returning from Victoria.

In most cases, people suffering from flu symptoms will simply be asked, but not compelled, to stay home from work, with health authorities deeming testing for H1N1 unnecessary for all but the sickest or most vulnerable to the disease.

Even swine flu cases will be denied access to Tamiflu or Relenza from the national medicines stockpile unless they have other conditions such as asthma, diabetes, obesity or pregnancy that heighten the risk of complications.

Widespread school closures will cease, with children able to attend class even after siblings with flu symptoms are sent home sick.

Elective surgery and other non-urgent procedures will be postponed if demand for intensive care units and emergency departments becomes too great.

Thermal scanners will be removed from international airports in the most public acknowledgement yet that Australia's borders are now open to the disease.

Australia's chief medical officer, Jim Bishop, said the public health programs introduced since swine flu was first detected locally made it unlikely the modelling scenarios would eventuate.

"We think that we can mitigate it down to a similar experience with ordinary seasonal flu, but we don't have evidence of that yet," he said.

The government is increasing surveillance, monitoring and testing for swine flu in hospitals and general practices to replace earlier mass-tracing regimes, with the first measures of its spread and virulence expected over the next few weeks.