No need to panic about Avian Flu Pandemics

But the article also emphasises that the unpredictability of pandemics, their rapid spread and their high attack rates means that high levels of vigilance must be maintained.

Infectious diseases experts, Dr David Isaacs and Dr Dominic Dwyer, and Head of the WHO Collaborating Centre on Influenza, Dr Alan Hampson, stressed that Australia has gone to great lengths to plan for viral pandemics.

While regular influenza can be combated with vaccines developed annually according to predicted changes in the virus strain, influenza pandemics are the result of dramatic changes in the virus. The unpredictable changes in the pandemic virus strains means that they are unlikely to be prevented in the short term by vaccines.

"Australia has been planning to cope with an influenza pandemic since 1997," Professor Isaacs said.

"A framework for a pandemic plan was published in 1999, and an action plan was established in 2003.

"The National Influenza Pandemic Action Committee (NIPAC) was formed in 2003 to plan for pandemics and to monitor the avian influenza situation.

"NIPAC addresses many aspects of pandemic planning including border protection, immunisation, antiviral agents, laboratory diagnosis, infection control measures to limit spread, respiratory hygiene and communication with the public.

"As planning for an influenza pandemic overlaps with planning for outbreaks of other viral infections, Australian pandemic planning has been given a boost by the need to develop plans for SARS and for possible bioterrorist attacks with the smallpox virus," Dr Isaacs said.

The recent outbreak of avian influenza in Asia has caused great alarm because of the high mortality when it is transmitted to humans, but very few human cases have actually been reported. And no cases of human-to-human spread have been identified.

We can be reassured that Australia is prepared should an influenza pandemic occur.

The Medical Journal of Australia is a publication of the Australian Medical Association.