Pacific cruise ship disembarks swine flu cases

Updated May 27, 2009 15:30:49

Australian medical authories are reeling with the realisation that the swine virus is expected to blow-out to epidemic proportions on Australian soil in the next couple of weeks. Health specialists predict a fifth of the world's population could catch the flu before a vaccine is developed. And government ministers want answers as to how potentially infected passengers from cruise ship Pacific Dawn were allowed to breach quarantine by being allowed to disembark.

The Pacific Dawn had just returned from Vanuatu and New Caledonia. Neither country has any confirmed cases of the virus. And plans for the cruise liner to dock at two Queensland ports have now been cancelled amid concerns of further swine flu cases. The ship was due to dock in the Whitsundays on Thusday but is now making its way to Willis Island, east of Cairns. The ship will stay there until test results are available.

Presenter: Rachael Brown
Speaker:

BROWN: The doubling of Australia's swine flu case count over the past 24 hours may be just the tip of the iceberg.

MCINTYRE: For the 50 or so confirmed cases that we know about, they will be probably at least 100 cases that we have not picked up.

BROWN: Professor Reiner McIntyre, of Infectious Diseases Epidemiology at the University of New South Wales, expects the virus will become a full blown epidemic within weeks.

McINTYRE: It's clearly well and truly here. There are clearly cases that are occurring in people with no history of contact with a traveller or having travelled to affected areas. We could expect 10 to 20 per cent of the population to be affectedand get sick.

REPORTER: Millions of cases?

McINTYRE: Yes, that's right.

BROWN: Professor McIntyre says it's potentially fatal.

McINTYRE: Every year just with normal seasonal flu in Australia, we see about 2,800 deaths, so we could expect to see people dying from this flu, more than the number we see from normal seasonal flu.

BROWN: And will have a devastating impact on the local economy and health system. In a bid to deal with the deluge, Victoria, with the most cases, has announced four special Swine flu clinics to help doctors and hospitals cope. Victoria's Health Minister, Daniel Andrews, wanted answers as to how potentially-infected passengers from the cruise ship, Pacific Dawn, were allowed to effectively breach quarantine through no fault of their own, by being allowed to disembark.

New South Wales authorities are under fire for letting at least 10 infected people return home. But today, Minister Andrews changed tack.

ANDREWS: In terms of the 36 individuals who have travelled back to Victoria, we are doing the intensive contact tracing.

BROWN: Queensland Health Minister, Paul Lucas, has also declined to point the finger, saying the handling of the boat passengers would have made little overall difference.

The Federal Health Minister, Nicola Roxon, has defended the decision to let passengers leave.

ROXON: Holding 2,000 people or trying to put them in some sort of other isolated circumstances would have its own difficulties and the advice that we have so far is for us not to restrict internal travel in any way. In fact our advice and the international advice is not to close borders or restrict travel. They don't believe this disease can be prevented from passing through the community in that way.

BROWN: But concerned travellers flooded local radio talkback lines today frustrated with ad-hoc quarantine measures.

Queensland honeymooner, Nick Campbell, was on the cruise ship. He and his wife now have the virus and say management of the outbreak was botched.

CAMPBELL: Pretty poorly, considering they knew it was coming. I mean it was pretty obvious it was going to come.

BROWN: Was that at the ship end?

CAMPBELL: Yhe ship end. They were very, very poor.