Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Will the minister advise the House on the latest swine flu developments and the government’s response to date?

Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Chisholm. Like the member for Corio, I think that particularly Victorian members in this House are very focused on the fast spread of this disease in Australia. I want to just add a couple of points to those made by the Prime Minister, that I think will be of interest to the House. In doing so, I might just remind people that this disease is a disease that came onto the international radar about six weeks ago in Mexico. The Australian government has been using all its efforts to ensure from that time that we delay for as long as possible the entry of this disease into Australia. That has bought us valuable time both in the hope of producing a vaccine quickly by the time we have large numbers of people suffering from this disease in Australia, and also learning more about the disease—how it spreads and who it is particularly having an impact on. So the delay has benefited this community.

But as the Prime Minister indicated, we are at 61 cases in Australia. Looking at how that developed, our first case was confirmed on 9 May. We had six cases a week ago. We had 31 at the same time yesterday, and there are 61 today. So Australians do have to prepare themselves for the fact that we will see an increase in those numbers. We are seeing the disease spread rapidly in the same way, for example, it did in Japan where in a very short space of time, particularly in high schools, we saw the numbers rise. They are now at 350 confirmed cases.

We know that most people in Australia are experiencing very mild symptoms. Obviously, getting early treatment with antivirals has assisted with that and we hope that that will continue to be the case. But the Prime Minister mentioned the harder edge that this disease does have, and that is that a small proportion of cases can be very severe. We know this is now a disease of young people and that it has a particular impact on children and teenagers. We have also seen from the patterns overseas that pregnant women and asthmatics and others with respiratory problems are particularly at risk. Unfortunately, I do need to remind the House that there have been 92 deaths from this disease across the world, mostly in Mexico. There have been 10 in the United States, one in Canada and one in Costa Rica.

The Prime Minister has taken the House through the range of steps that have been taken to try to delay the disease from coming into Australia and to handle its identification and treatment now that it is in Australia—and I will not repeat those steps. Members of this House will increasingly be getting calls at their electorate offices. People will be looking to us to provide proper information to them. The swine flu hotline is still the best source of reliable information for people to use. The number is 1802007. It has been in place for more than a month. Unsurprisingly, we have seen a spike in the number of calls over the last 24 hours. Please do not hesitate to encourage your constituents who need advice to use that hotline.

I also take this opportunity to advise members—if they have not seen the invitation already—that Professor Jim Bishop has offered to brief all members first thing on Monday on what we know about the spread of this disease around the world. Obviously the situation is changing. I note that Professor Bishop has been providing briefings to both the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow health minister. I understand that more of those briefings will be provided. We are happy to do that and we appreciate the support that has been shown. Obviously this is a difficult and changing situation and we all need to work together. Similarly, we are working closely with the states and territories. We are pleased that they are taking some additional steps in terms of communicating with each other about people travelling across state borders. Also, many of the jurisdictions are setting up special flu clinics. As we move into our flu season, many people who have seasonal flu will fear that they have swine flu. So making sure that facilities are available for the proper testing, identification and handling of the disease is going to be increasingly important.

We need to remain vigilant. We need to keep up our efforts to contain this disease. People should follow the advice of their medical practitioner. Those who are travelling should take care and ensure that they look at the advice provided on the Smartraveller website, which my colleague the Minister for Foreign Affairs is ensuring is kept up to date as the situation changes around the world. There is no cause for alarm and panic, but the Prime Minister has encouraged people to follow proper flu etiquette. That might sound like a strange thing, but it is valuable in the containment of this disease. Please make sure that you encourage anyone you are in contact with to follow that etiquette and we will be able to reduce the spread of this disease.