Typhoid is not a disease to be taken lightly. If left untreated it can be fatal for about a quarter of those infected. Others can remain carriers of the disease without showing symptoms. So it would seem fairly important that when an outbreak is found in a city the size of Auckland, every effort is made to alert the public and quickly test anyone who has been exposed to an infected person or is exhibiting the known symptoms. The Auckland Regional Public Health Service could have done better in this regard.
Late last Friday afternoon it announced that a typhoid outbreak had occurred in Auckland and 10 people were being treated in hospital. It chose not to mention, until yesterday, that a woman with the infection had died in Auckland City Hospital three days earlier. The woman was a member of the Mt Roskill Samoan Assembly of God Church as are all those hospitalised so far, who numbered 15 by yesterday.
The public health service clinical director, Dr Julia Peters, said the announcement of the death was delayed until after the woman's funeral this week out of respect to the church. But sensitivity of that sort is surely less important than a public health alert. Nothing underlines the seriousness of a disease such as this more than a death associated with it.
The public health service was concentrating its efforts on locating all members of the church who had been in contact with those being treated. But the congregation was drawn from central and south Auckland and by the time the public was notified of the outbreak a week had elapsed since the disease had appeared. In that time it easily could have been transmitted more widely. It could yet turn out to have done so.
People who responded to the public health warning since last Friday night, and have reported their symptoms to their doctor or gone to after-hours emergency rooms, may still be waiting for the results of the tests that will tell whether they have typhoid. Not much urgency is apparent in the health services' response.
