Medics call for national response to outbreaks

EXCLUSIVE

AUSTRALIA’S ability to control the rampant Chinese coronavirus is being hampered because we don’t have a centralised infection control body like other western countries, according to medical experts.

The Australian Medical Association and the Australasian Society for Infectious Disease (ASID) yesterday called for a national centre for infectious disease, so departments aren’t tripping over each other.

Australia’s fragmented approach was laid bare this week as some states and the Federal Government supplied contradictory messages on whether children who had been to China recently should be allowed to attend school.

The US, China and Europe all have centralised bodies that co-ordinate responses to infectious outbreaks.

In Australia we have nine levels of government all trying to co-ordinate responses – six states, two territories and the Federal Government.

“We’ve said for a long time the co-ordination and timing of activities and sharing of information during an epidemic needs leadership in one place,” Australian Medical Association president Dr Tony Bartone told News Corp.

A spokesman for federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said the World Health Organisation had identified Australia as “one of the most well prepared health systems in the world”. Australia had a disease control framework in the form of the Communicable Diseases Network Australia (CDNA) set up in 1989, he said.

“The CDNA is supported by the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee which provides national leadership.”