Slow reactions to health crises spark review

Auckland’s poor handling of a deadly typhoid outbreak has prompted Manawatu officials to assess how they’d deal with a public health crisis.

There are now 20 confirmed cases of typhoid in the Auckland outbreak, which has killed one person. The health service in the city of sails only went public with news of the outbreak three days after her death. The woman was not quarantined while in hospital and family members and children visited her without any kind of precautions to stop the disease spreading.

Officials at the Midcentral District Health Board hope to learn lessons from their counterparts further north. Board member Barbara Robson said both the typhoid outbreak and Havelock North water issues were a concern.

‘‘They are linked, because usually those waterborne diseases are under [the] first section of notifiable diseases.’’

The Hastings District Council was criticised for not alerting people quickly enough to prevent a large outbreak of vomiting and diarrhoea in Havelock North when hundreds of people were struck down by a gastro outbreak caused by water contamination.

Robson asked for a report into the competency of Midcentral’s systems.

Robson said she was confident they were robust.

‘‘But given the extra attention, I think it would be worthwhile to get that extra assurance.’’

She wanted to be sure that all agencies would be working together as they should in the event of an outbreak.

Robson said the medical officer of health had received 600 notifications about various issues in 2015.

Midcentral chief executive Kathryn Cook said she was also confident in the systems in place.

Seven cases of measles were reported at the Institute of the Pacific United NZ in Palmerston North at the start of February. That prompted a quarantine of affected students, a hiatus of classes and the vaccination of about 220 people.

Cook was awaiting formal findings on the handling of Havelock North’s gastro bug.