Pandemic Flu : 'The Biological Tsunami'

The Howard government spent hundreds of millions of dollars preparing for a deadly influenza pandemic through late 2005 and 2006. Anti-viral stockpiling was ramped up, large-scale rehearsals for government and emergency departments responses to a pandemic outbreak were held, millions of dollars were given to privately owned vaccine manufacturers to increase their ability to pump out alleged flu vaccines in the millions of doses for the (then) coming day when mass vaccination programs would be unveiled...

Compared to current health minister, Nicola Roxon, then health minister Tony Abbott was Mr Doom, and pandemic flu Fearmonger In Chief. He also happened to be mostly right.

From Lateline, September 13, 2005 (excerpts) :

TONY JONES: In a little publicised speech at an infectious diseases conference several months ago, the Health Minister Tony Abbott spelled out the worst-case scenario for a global avian flu pandemic. As you'll hear, contingency planning is well advanced in this country, though many thousands of deaths are still anticipated, along with the potential for social and economic chaos in a health crisis that could last six months or more....

TONY JONES : Now, would you agree that preparing this country for a possible avian flu pandemic could well be the most important job you ever do as a politician?

TONY ABBOTT: ....We don't know if a pandemic will happen, we don't know when one might happen, but if one does happen it will be a public health disaster, the magnitude of which this country has not seen at least since 1919 when we had the last flu pandemic.

....back in 1919, Australia had a Spanish flu pandemic outbreak and that killed some 13,000 Australians, in a then population of about 4 million and at different times in the first half of 1919, schools were closed, churches were closed, places of public gathering were off limits. Normal life had pretty much ceased in large parts of Australia. We have little folk memory of this thoug...

TONY JONES: You've actually said and referred to it in this way - that what a new pandemic might be like would be a sort of biological tsunami?

TONY ABBOTT: That's correct, because if we have a pandemic of the severity of the Spanish flu pandemic of 1819, many, many tens of millions of people could die in the absence of effective prophylaxis and treatment and while we are reasonably confident that antivirals can be effective in preventing people from getting the disease, there's nothing like the kind of antiviral stockpile anywhere in the world that will fully protect people....

TONY JONES: ....Hugh White has told us that the threat of a flu pandemic to Australia makes the threat of terrorism really pale into insignificance. Do you agree with him?

TONY ABBOTT: I don't think that the threat of terrorism is something that we should take lightly and there is an element of horror in man killing his fellow man, which is absent from things which are truly acts of God. But still, there is no doubt about it. A pandemic if it hits Australia and it is of the severity of the 1918 outbreak, will potentially kill many thousands of people and it's hard to imagine any terrorist attack - short of a nuclear bomb in a major city - that would have a comparable impact.

TONY JONES: I understand the quarantine arrangements that you have are quite extensive, six times 500-bed facilities, is that the case? Where would they be and how quickly could they be put in place?

TONY ABBOTT: Basically we are prepositioning the equipment necessary to stock these quarantine centres and the quarantine centres will be close by international airports.

TONY JONES: Do you think we've got our priorities right here? We have spent hundred and hundreds of millions of dollars and perhaps nearly $1 billion on border security relating to terrorism. Have we spent anywhere near that much as what you admit theoretically would be a far worse outcome if a pandemic occurred?

TONY ABBOTT: We have spent everything that we can usefully spend so far, Tony. We've got on a per capita basis just about the world's largest stockpile of antivirals. We are working very hard and as quickly as we can on a candidate pandemic vaccine. We're prepositioning these quarantine centres. We've got our national pandemic plan in place in consultation with the states and territories. We are close to achieving our stockpile of masks and syringes. So all the money that we need to spend on preparedness that we can usefully currently spend we have spent.

TONY JONES: How detailed, though, is the emergency plan? Do you have plans to evacuate cities? Do you have plans as happened back in the turn of the century, or during the First World War outbreak? Do you have plans to close down public facilities, theatres, even possibly public transport?

TONY ABBOTT: Again Tony, that would depend upon the particular virulence of the outbreak. Certainly we have plans for an escalating health response, including mobile teams, home quarantine, home treatment, so that only the very serious cases have to go to public hospitals.

The Rudd government response appears, for now, to be following the pandemic response plans drawn up in 2005 and 2006.

But will the Rudd government give vaccine makers the same immunity from prosecution for deaths, side effects and illnesses (that may result from its pandemic flu vaccine), that the Howard government was willing to grant back CSL in 2006?



.

If It's Not Swine Flu, Then What The Hell Is Going On?

By Darryl Mason

Why are so many people having so much trouble breathing normally?

The president of the Australian Medical Association Victoria, Harry Hemley, said doctors had been overwhelmed with people suffering respiratory infections in recent weeks.

"I would say about one-third of the population has some sort of upper respiratory infection right now, but I can't say how many of those have swine flu," he said.

So if it's not swine flu, and pollution levels in Australian cities are not causing this, then what is responsible?

The Australian government likes to boast about its 'one of the best in the world' stockpile of anti-virals, gloves and facemasks, but it seems reluctant to let them go to the front line Australians who need them the most :

Dr Hemley said many GPs had been exposed to the virus while caring for patients because protective equipment released from the Federal Government's stockpile had not yet arrived.

More than 1500 Australians are officially categorised as having been infected with Influenza A H1N1 by Monday morning, but the real figure is expected to be many thousands more.

The New Flu has already spread so far and wide across Australia that Health Minister, Nicola Roxon, has announced they're bailing on widespread testing and hardcore quarantine measures. They're not going to stop the spread, they know it, as the American Centre For Disease Control knew and admitted more than a month ago. Quarantining rugby league players and cruise ships was just "buying some more time", no time at all as it turns out.

The Great Hope that the Rudd government will sell this week instead is the August release of a supposed vaccine against swine flu. Well, a vaccine against the swine flu virus that is rapidly spreading now, and it may well mutate further by the time August rolls around, which would render the prepared vaccine not so effective, or downright useless.

Those with pre-existing health conditions, children and the elderly are expected to be the more likely to suffer seriously from the New Flu, though many of the deaths already reported from the virus in the US and Mexico seem to centre around people aged between 5 and 30 years old.

Nicola Roxon said that infected Australians who were now in intensive care were mostly those who were already suffering "respiratory illnesses."

And doctors are reportedly overwhelmed with "people suffering respiratory infections".

So, you have all these people apparently already suffering from respiratory problems while a fast-spreading previously unknown influenza virus seems to be hitting the hardest those already having trouble breathing normally.

It's a hell of a way for a country to head into Winter, and its peak flu months.

We are now only entering the second week of a new pandemic reality, one that may take 18 months to two years or more to unfold.

While the Rudd government will try to be seen as doing Everything It Can, the curious new influenza strain will do whatever it's going to do, mostly unhindered, for the next few months at least, by vaccines and containment measures.

How do you go to war against something that can spawn three generations of itself in under 60 seconds?

If you can't get your hands on pharmaceutical anti-virals, star aniseed is better than nothing, and some would argue far better in fact than the side-effect addled Tamiflu.

It's Not A Wonder Drug, Merv, It's A Wonder Vaccine

By Darryl Mason

As I wrote here on The Orstrahyun, June 4 :

Joel Fitzgibbon's resignation is just another curious example of Ruddlife imitating The Hollow Men, instead of the other way around. The episode where the PM's staff battled to decide whether it looked better for the prime minister to sack his defence minister, or accept his resignation, was only repeated on the ABC a couple of weeks ago.

The Budget episode of The Hollow Men, aired a week before treasurer Wayne Swann delivered the real one, was also full of key phrases and words that were put to good use when Swann and Rudd and Julia Gillard stepped in front of the media to sell it.

You'll know some sort of Evil Lefty ABC conspiracy is afoot if the Wonder Drug episode of The Hollow Men airs a week or two before the Rudd government begins seriously trying to sell the swine flu Wonder Vaccine

The instant classic 'Wonder Drug' episode of The Hollow Men aired again last Friday.

Next week begins the hardcore Big Sell by the Rudd government of a claimed swine flu vaccine.

RuddLife imitates The Hollow Men again.

The Rudd government has already committed to buy some 10 million doses of swine flu vaccine, even one that only has had, maximum, ten weeks of clinical trials :

Novartis, which has its Australian headquarters in Sydney, announced it had successfully completed cell-based production of the first batch of A(H1N1) vaccine.

"Based on that success, the company expects to be able to achieve rapid production," a Novartis spokesman said.

"The vaccine is in clinical trials now.''

Australian pharmaceutical company CSL said it would continue to develop a vaccine in Australia. Spokeswoman Dr Rachel David said CSL was conducting clinical trials of vaccines to determine the ideal dosage.

Nothing yet on possible side effects, and how the side effects compare to actually enduring and getting over a bout with swine flu.

No Australian deaths related to swine flu yet but the first fatalities blamed on the virus must only be a few days or a week away at the most. If not, Australia will be a curious anomaly as it will have some of the highest infection rates per capita but the lowest death rate.

The following numbers are of confirmed cases of infection, but the true numbers are probably far higher.

The government has confirmed 1441 cases of swine flu, including 1011 cases in Victoria, 160 in NSW, 90 in Queensland, 59 in Western Australia, 47 in South Australia, 41 in ACT, 17 in the Northern Territory and 16 in Tasmania.

I've been out of it for a few days with some kind of nasty bastard flu. That's why it's been quite around here. First time in a couple of years I've had anything that shut down the mini-writing factory for more than a day, or two. Don't like that. Forced to stop because the brain is too fogged out to function properly makes me very angry.

I went to the local medical centre to get checked out on Thursday, but it was standing room only. and they were only seeing "emergency cases", outside of those already booked in. First free appointment is Monday, 11pm. The only other two doctors within walking distance are likewise booked solid.

Either there are a lot of people around here feeling as utterly crap as I am, or a lot of locals have simply decided to exercise caution and headed to the doctor's when symptoms manifested they felt uneasy about.

There must be many other towns across Australia this weekend where it is next to impossible to find a doctor or medical centre that isn't fully booked.

Not much about swamped medical centres in the news yet. Maybe my neighbourhood is filled with hypochondriacs.

I knuckled last Monday, in spare hours, to finally finish the long overdue rewrite of the ED Day : Dead Sydney novel I published online in 2007 and 2008. It's a strange thing indeed to be working on a novel about life in Sydney after a flu pandemic at the same time a real pandemic is declared and then coming down with a flu that is fairly debilitating, heading for the local medical centre, finding it all but over-run with other flu patients....

I thought I became slightly obsessive with the hand-washing over the past few weeks. Didn't stop me from catching whatever this flu is.

I'd have to be feeling a hell of a lot sicker than this, however, before I volunteered to take a vaccine only a couple of weeks old, and fresh out of very brief clinical trials.

Obviously, there will be more on all this when the old energy levels return, and if I learn anything interesting from the doctor visit on Monday, I'll write it up here.