Health plans for virus outbreak

Health professionals in the top of the south are preparing for a coronavirus outbreak as the infectious disease continues to spread around the world.

At a meeting of the Nelson Marlborough District Health Board yesterday, chief medical officer Dr Nick Baker said the virus was of ‘‘significant concern’’ and required planning for the ‘‘worst-case scenario’’, which would be an impact similar to that of the 1918 flu pandemic, in which 9000

people died in New Zealand in less than two months. ‘‘Hopefully, we will not get to that stage, and what we do now will help us to try and stop that.’’

Baker said the situation in South Korea and Italy was ‘‘especially alarming’’.

‘‘It is taking off exponentially in countries outside of China. The risk is still largely associated with travellers, although that is becoming increasingly untrue in South Korea and Italy, which is a major concern.

‘‘Some of the worst outbreaks in both Wuhan, Korea and in Italy have come from someone who has been in hospital with the condition who was not picked as having the typical condition.’’

In contrast, Singapore, Japan and Hong Kong had proven to be reasonably good at cluster control, as the virus hadn’t ‘‘gotten away completely’’ in those countries.

‘‘To some extent, I think there is some luck involved in it. If you have someone in your hospital who is infectious and you do not know or they are asymptomatic, you can have a lot of spread,’’ Baker said.

Pre-emptive planning, border control and isolation of those who had been exposed to infection were key.

‘‘Obviously, travel to certain countries comes with a higher risk, but we can’t exclude the possibility of contagion occurring in travellers who may have been through an airport toilet or waiting area.’’

When it came to accessing healthcare, it was important that anyone concerned they had the virus phoned ahead so appropriate protection could be put in place.

Health professionals also needed to take a really clear history of an individual’s personal travel in the previous 28 days.

Baker said hospital staff were doing stocktakes of personal protective equipment as well as looking at the supply chain for face masks, oxygen tubing, oxygen and other items likely to be needed in an outbreak. The DHB was continuing to develop policies and protocols for suspected case management.

‘‘Contact tracing in the community is something that would be critical if we were to get a single case, to try and stop that being a cluster.’’

The public health service had good experience tracing an infected person’s contact with others in recent cases of measles and whooping cough, he said.

Baker said the health system needed to develop ‘‘surge capacity’’ in order to keep those at risk of developing novel coronavirus away from those who were in hospital for other reasons.

The DHB was waiting on modelling from the Ministry of Health as to the potential numbers of infections in the region.

‘‘For now, the major thing is really to do our best to keep it out but be ready if we are not successful.’’

The other concern was that between five and 15 per cent of those infected needed intensive care support, which was a challenging issue for the whole country and required planning at a national and local level.