New Zealand's influenza pandemic preparedness report released

The New Zealand Ministry of Health has released the key findings of Exercise Cruickshank, one of the biggest exercises ever staged by government.

Exercise Cruickshank, held in May of this year, was designed to test New Zealand’s pandemic preparedness.

New Zealand National Coordinator of Pandemic Planning, Steve Brazier, says “Exercise Cruickshank successfully exercised the four stages of a pandemic response across more than 40 government agencies and organisations at national and local levels and all of the country’s District Health Boards and Public Health Units.”

Exercise Cruickshank tested New Zealand’s border control measures, quarantine and hospital plans, the early detection and isolation of patients, use of antiviral drugs, communicating information to the public and media and the set up of Community Based Assessment Centres (CBACs) to assess and treat people with pandemic influenza.

Mr Brazier said one of the main purposes of the exercise was to make a policy document -- the New Zealand Influenza Pandemic Action Plan -- operational. The plan will now be revised, using experience gained on the exercise, into more of a "how-to-do it" document.

Beginning on May 10, government and health agencies spent a day attempting to ‘keep it out’ of New Zealand after being notified overnight that the fictional Central American country of San Guano had influenza cases. New Zealand had direct flight links with San Guano so public health staff practiced screening passengers at several international air and seaports.

The scenario then took a six to eight week time jump and on May 16, New Zealand health authorities found cases of pandemic influenza in the community and moved to the ‘stamp it out’ phase of the plan.

On May 17, a further six to eight weeks had elapsed and New Zealand was in the middle of a pandemic and in the ‘manage it’ phase.

The National Crisis Management Centre was activated in the Beehive Bunker and District Health Boards grappled with thousands of cases nationwide.

Day four, May 23, took the form of local discussion exercise about the recovery phase and on the final day, May 30, a National Recovery Workshop was held in Wellington at the stadium.

Fifteen international observers from the World Health Organization, the Australian Government Department of Health, Niue, Tokelau, New Caledonia and the British Government were invited to watch the exercise unfold.

"They were greatly impressed with New Zealand's state of preparedness, and the level of buy-in and co-operation from various government agencies." Mr Brazier says

"The purpose of exercises like this is to identify areas for improvement so that New Zealand is better prepared for, and able to respond to, a real influenza pandemic.

"New Zealanders can be assured that when a pandemic hits this country, we will be ready. And it is a case of 'when' not 'if'. We can't afford to become complacent about the possibility of an influenza pandemic."

The report on Exercise Cruickshank is available at: www.moh.govt.nz/moh.nsf/indexmh/exercise-cruickshank-report-oct07