Rachel Smalley: Typhoid outbreak should have been handled better

A woman died and the Auckland Regional Public Health Service took three days to alert the public that it was typhoid, and a further three days to confirm that someone had died.

The woman's family say they weren't told that she died of typhoid until a week after her death. So the people who visited her in hospital were unaware she had typhoid fever.

And now there are 18 confirmed cases with six people still in hospital. Another three cases are being closely watched.

Health authorities still have no clue who 'Patient Zero' is. They need to find the person who came here with typhoid so they can determine who they've had contact with. Given it's not endemic in this country, authorities believe it must have been introduced - but by whom, and where? And they believe the number of cases is likely to grow because they can't isolate that first case.

All of the cases at the moment are linked to a Samoan church, but the Auckland Regional Public Health Service initially got that wrong too.

They said the woman who died had attended the Mt Roskill Samoan Assembly of God. She hadn't. She attended a different church in Mt Roskill. They named the wrong church which meant people were taking their children to hospital to be checked when there was no risk, but it also meant those who did need to be checked for symptoms, weren't.

And we know the Minister of Health, Jonathan Coleman, found out through the media.

So that's where it sits now. Whoops. We weren't on our game with our public messaging. Sorry about that. And now there are 18 confirmed cases of typhoid fever at the moment.

At this point, the Health Service has been lucky I think.

There was no public notification for some time, those who were exposed to typhoid fever weren't checked for symptoms for over a week, and Patient Zero remains elusive.

Never mind the apology from the Public Health Service. Just reassure the public that next time there's an outbreak, the systems are in place and the communication plan is there to deal with it.

Knowledge is power, and the public can't protect itself if it's left completely in the dark.