DHBs silent on bird flu plan

Auckland health officials are refusing to release details of their plans for dealing with a bird flu pandemic, despite the city being the most likely site of an outbreak.

According to the Ministry of Health's pandemic planning webpage, the country's 21 district health boards all have local plans.

However, requests by the Herald on Sunday, under the Official Information Act, for copies of the plans yielded mixed results.

All the health boards said their plans were at a draft stage and many refused to release copies.

The virulent H5N1 avian flu strain has killed at least 64 people across Asia in the past two years.

The World Health Organisation has warned that if the virus mutates to allow human-to-human transmission, the resulting pandemic could kill between two million and 7.4 million people worldwide.

New Zealand suffered influenza outbreaks in 1918, 1957 and 1968.

Speaking in Parliament last week, Health Minister Pete Hodgson said his ministry had received plans from each of the DHBs, but only seven health boards - Hutt Valley, Bay of Plenty, Lakes, Whanganui, Tairawhiti, Otago and Hawke's Bay - released their plans to the Herald on Sunday.

Hutt Valley DHB also issued a copy of the Wellington and Wairarapa regional plan, which said the capital - because of its international airport and high number of travellers - could possibly see the country's first incident of bird flu, but "the most likely place for initial cases is Auckland".

However, the three health boards in the Auckland region - Auckland, Waitemata, and Counties Manukau - all refused to make their draft plans public, as did the Capital and Coast, Wairarapa, MidCentral, Taranaki, Nelson Marlborough and Northland DHBs.

The remaining five health boards - Waikato, West Coast, Canterbury, South Canterbury and Southland - simply failed to respond to the request.

National Party health spokesman Tony Ryall said he was worried about the level of local planning for a pandemic and called on the DHBs to release their draft plans for public scrutiny and feedback.

"There's no reason why they should have hidden that information," he said.

Auckland Regional coordinator Nigel Murray - who is in charge of the pandemic plan for metropolitan Auckland, covering all three DHBs - said the state of planning was too "fluid" for documents to be released.

"The plan, with 'el draft' on it and formative and complete, is still under production," he said.

He agreed that "statistically" Auckland was the most likely first site for an outbreak but said it was impossible to accurately forecast.

"It might be more likely to be a higher risk area but with air travel somebody can come in from overseas and go straight to the far regions of New Zealand."

But he admitted the impact of a pandemic would be more pronounced in Auckland because of the population density.

Mr Murray said the DHBs were planning how to move patients between jurisdictions, whether the DHBs' roles should differ, and how to share staff and resources.

The plans would also include possible quarantine and field hospital sites.

In a letter to all health board chief executives, dated 26 October and obtained by the Herald on Sunday, Auckland DHB head Garry Smith said it was clear there needed to be "a stronger connection and cohesive framework" linking national and local planning.

He advised DHBs to focus on "function before form" in measuring pandemic preparedness, putting the emphasis on planning activities rather than the state of the final plan.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY