Quarantine may change as swine flu tally hits 400 - 紐澳

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The Canberra Times- Quarantine may change as swine flu tally hits 400
BY MELISSA JENKINS 2009.06.02

Australia's swine flu tally has passed 400 as Victoria recorded a massive
surge in cases, most of them children.

By yesterday afternoon the number of confirmed cases in the state had risen
to 306, an increase of 94 in 24 hours.

According to official federal Health Department figures there were 64
confirmed cases in NSW, 18 in Queensland, six in South Australia, four in the
ACT, and one each in Tasmania, the Northern Territory and Western Australia.

Queensland Health officials however, said yesterday the state now had 22
confirmed cases.

Most of the new cases in Victoria also involved young people aged five to 18,
prompting a 12th Victorian school to be closedyesterday.

Two schools in Cairns also will be closed this week after two 13-year-old
girls tested positive for the virus.

Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon said the Government was assessing
whether to elevate the nation's response to the disease from the contain to
the sustain phase.

Victoria is already preparing to move into the sustain phase, under which
quarantining is limited to those who share a home with a confirmed swine flu
patient.

In the contain phase, anyone who has had contact with a swine flu patient is
quarantined voluntarily and given antiviral drugs for a week.

The nation's chief medical officer, Professor Jim Bishop, said the advice to
people with flu-like symptoms may change as swine flu evolved.

At present, people who come down with flu-like symptoms, especially if they
have recently travelled to an affected country, are being advised to seek
medical advice.

Professor Bishop said in the future, fit and healthy people may be told to
stay at home and only those in at-risk groups, including those with
respiratory problems and asthma, will be advised to visit their GP.

''A lot of people that have these sorts of symptoms of course will, as this
thing progresses, stay at home and not necessarily seek medical advice if in
their own case it is a mild infection and that we expect to see more of,'' he
said.

The swine flu-affected ship Pacific Dawn docked in Sydney at 8am yesterday
after NSW Health authorities gave it the all-clear.

The P&O ship was forced to cut short its trip to the Barrier Reef last week
when three crew tested positive for the virus.

A senior NSW Health doctor and 25 nurses boarded the ship in Brisbane on
Saturday, testing all 2500 people on board during the two-day voyage to
Sydney.

Passengers said they still enjoyed the journey.

David Geers, of Brisbane, joked it was the perfect place to be quarantined
for seven days.

''If you had to be quarantined somewhere I couldn't have thought of a better
place ... because we got fed, the drinks tasted the same and the staff were
fantastic,'' he said.

More than 15,000 people in 53 countries have tested positive to swine flu and
99 have died.

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