University Games swine flu restrictions 'impractical'

Proposed swine flu restrictions for the World University Games in Belgrade next month appear impractical, New Zealand chef de mission Lynne Coleman said today.

Serbian deputy prime minister Bozidar Djelic has said that the thousands of athletes attending the games will be required to provide a certificate saying they do not have swine flu, or they will be quarantined.

The Associated Press said the announcement came the same day that Serbia announced its first swine flu case: a 29-year-old man who arrived from Argentina.

Djelic said athletes and guests at the games also will be checked for swine flu on a daily basis as part of measures designed to curb the spread of the disease.

But Dr Coleman, who leaves for Belgrade tomorrow, said she didn't see hold the measures proposed by Djelic would work.

The World University Games is organised by the International University Sports Federation. About 9000 competitors and coaches from 142 countries are scheduled to take part from July 1-12.

Dr Coleman, a North Shore medical doctor, said New Zealand athletes were scheduled to start arriving on July 28.

"Hopefully there's a whole lot of countries having to produce the certification before we get there so they might have phased it out by the time we arrive, because I just can't see that it's practical at all," she told NZPA today.

"If they're asking for documents that mean you've actually been tested then, I would've thought they'd have got in contact with the individual countries and asked for some arrangements to be made to have that test.

"They haven't done that, so my feeling would be that all they can do is border control like we are all doing around the world and screen people that have respiratory tract infections and a fever."

Dr Coleman said she had made a recommendation that the 34-strong travelling group have courses of Tamiflu available against the possibility of coming into contact with swine flu on the way to Belgrade.

She said competitors were "essentially quarantined" from the local population in the secure athletes' village anyway.

When the World Health Organisation declared swine flu to be a pandemic this month, officials said the virus was unstoppable.

It did not recommend that countries test people for swine flu when they are either entering or exiting a country.

So far, more than 55,000 cases of swine flu have been reported worldwide, including more than 230 deaths.

Most cases are mild and people do not need medical treatment to get better.

People infected with swine flu can be contagious before they get the symptoms, which include a fever and cough.

- NZPA