Aust braces for swine flu

Excerpt:
Updated 1 hour 31 minutes ago

An Australian epidemiologist says there is a treatment available if the suspected cases are proven to be swine flu.

Dr Andrew Jeremijenko says the antiviral drug Tamiflu has been proven to work, but it is possible the virus may develop resistance to the medication.

"Australia's very lucky; they actually did purchase a lot of Tamiflu, so we have a medicine that can treat swine flu," he said.

"It was good thinking on the Government's part. It has millions and millions of doses, it was stockpiled, so we're actually in a very good position compared to the rest of the world."

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Travel warning

Meanwhile, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has advised Australians to reconsider their need to travel to Mexico because of the outbreak.

DFAT has updated its travel advice website, following complaints the information on swine flu was inadequate.

Information about the virus was previously listed under Mexico and has only just been listed on the front page of the Government's Smartraveller website.

The Government announced yesterday that all pilots on flights from the Americas must ask travellers with flu symptoms to identify themselves, so authorities at the airport are prepared.

But Greens leader Bob Brown says the Government should have responded to the potential crisis more quickly.

"We need the information coming out from Government," he said.

"It's coming out slowly, but I think they ought to have been faster with, for example, checks on planes; they could have been a couple of days faster with that.

"And I think they should be a little bit faster in informing the public about what measures [are] to be taken."

Union concerns

The Transport Workers Union says Qantas needs to urgently implement an effective policy to inform airport workers on how to deal with a potential swine flu pandemic.

Treasury secretary Tony Sheldon says the union is receiving multiple phone calls from alarmed airport workers who have received no information on how to deal with the threat.

Mr Sheldon says Qantas has failed to brief workers on the nature of the illness and on how they can minimise the risk to their families and to the travelling public.

"We would think that logic would have meant that they would have already had a policy; we would have thought that they would have implemented it, if not yesterday, then at least today," he said.

"But still as it stands at the moment, staff are no further in the know about how they should respond to this present epidemic."