Australia: Health experts worried at speed flu spreading

CANBERRA - Concern is growing in Australia that as swine flu breaks containment lines and moves into the community the virus could mutate into new, possibly more potent, forms.

"The cat is out of the bag in some ways," Professor Anne Kelso, director of the World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre for Influenza in Melbourne, said yesterday.

Health officials say that the 29 cases confirmed so far in Australia have been mild, and that containment policies - including the closure of schools where the virus has appeared - remain important.

A Canberra victim who called ABC radio yesterday described his symptoms as an inconvenience, and said that he had suffered worse from paper cuts.

"I've got a cold, a little bit of the flu," the 41-year-old man, who did not want to be named, said.

"The fact that they call it the pig flu or swine flu is like saying you've got red cordial or green cordial."

But the confirmation that the man had contracted human swine flu A (H1N1) during a trip to the United States has emphasised the concern with which the virus is being treated.

Authorities are now trying to find anyone who came into contact with him, and have been testing children who attended his young daughter's birthday party.

Five schools in Victoria and South Australia have been closed following the weekend's decision by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to lift the swine flu alert level from "delay" to "contain", handing officials the power to shut classes down if there is a threat of infection.

Fear of further spread of the virus delayed the sailing of the P&O cruise ship Pacific Dawn on Monday after tests on two children arriving aboard the ship in Sydney proved positive. The pair were treated with Tamiflu and kept in isolation for 24 hours until their symptoms disappeared.

But one crew member and another adult passenger were yesterday also confirmed with the virus, and authorities urged the 2000 other passengers on the South Pacific cruise to put themselves into quarantine at home for seven days.

About 130 were tested after they reported flu-like symptoms, and all remaining passengers would be contacted, New South Wales Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant said.

Queensland officials were yesterday searching for passengers who flew back to the state after the ship docked, following the confinement of two in isolation in the Gold Coast Hospital and the home quarantining of 11 others.

The Pacific Dawn is now sailing to the Whitsundays, where it is due to arrive tomorrow, and will continue on to Cairns, Port Douglas and Willis Island before arriving in Brisbane next week.

But with state officials also tracking people who sat near another confirmed victim on a weekend flight from Los Angeles, Queensland Chief Health Officer Jeanette Young said she was worried by the speed at which the virus was spreading.

"I'm concerned that we're getting increased numbers of cases throughout Australia," she said.

Kelso told ABC radio that researchers were worried that the flu would mutate.

"As conditions become more suitable for the spread of flu in winter here, then if there is widespread circulation of this virus then inevitably it will mutate," she said.

"What we won't know of course, until it happens, is whether those mutations will make the virus worse or better - so that we simply have to wait and see. I think that the longer it spreads, the greater the chance of mutation.

"It is going to take some months for a vaccine to be available but the more we can slow down the spread of the virus in the community, the more people who can benefit from that work."

Swine flu has crossed the continent, with Western Australia confirming its first case in a 30-year-old man who had flown home from Canada to Perth via the US, New Zealand and Melbourne.

Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon said yesterday that 16 cases of swine flu had now been confirmed in Victoria, nine in NSW, two in South Australia and Queensland, one in Western Australia and one in the Australian Capital Territory.

- REUTERS reports that globally the flu strain has reached 46 countries.

The WHO's tally has risen to 12,954 infections and 92 deaths.