THE Federal Government has raised Australia's pandemic alert level after the first evidence swine flu is spreading between people here - a move that signals cancellation of big sporting events, religious rallies and concerts may be just weeks away.
The new "control" phase of the Government's plan for pandemic flu is likely to last one to three months. Then, if the spread of the disease has not already subsided, it is likely to be followed by the higher "sustain" phase, in which "people may be encouraged to avoid mass gatherings and certain events may even be cancelled", according to the plan.
New cases of swine flu can be expected to emerge in Australia every hour, the Government warned after the first two cases emerged in Victoria and South Australia of localised transmission of the virus among individuals who had not travelled overseas.
A total of 13 people in Australia had been confirmed with swine flu by late yesterday, two of them in NSW.
NSW health authorities are still investigating 24 potential cases, as laboratories said they were prepared to process hundreds of samples a day, turning round the results in a matter of hours.
The Health Minister, Nicola Roxon, said that the upgraded alert could mean more widespread school closures and other "social distancing" measures and the possible deployment of the national stockpile of 8 million courses of anti-viral drugs.
In South Australia two schools were closed for a week from yesterday after a second and possibly a third case were identified in that state. About 1000 students will stay home until next Friday, with about 50 year seven students to receive a course of TamiFlu anti-virals.
"Clearly we haven't stopped this disease coming into Australia," Ms Roxon said, so it was appropriate to lift the alert level. "It is important to remember that … there are still only a small number of confirmed cases in Australia, and the symptoms people are experiencing are relatively mild."
Jeremy McAnulty, the director of the communicable diseases branch of NSW Health, said although the national plan calls for health authorities to consider distributing face masks to front-line health workers at this stage, the measure was not yet warranted. "We don't have sustained transmission in the Australian community. We don't believe [workers] are going to be exposed to it," Dr McAnulty said.
If transmission within the community were to escalate, border screening measures for inbound travellers might be withdrawn, because this would then contribute relatively little to controlling the disease, caused by a new variant of the H1N1 flu virus.
Robert Booy, the head of clinical research at the National Centre for Immunisation Research & Surveillance at the University of Sydney, said the rising number of new cases globally, combined with pressure on the virus to mutate, meant swine flu "could change to the point where it is more novel and particularly more nasty".
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