Planning for a pandemic

A three-day mass immunisation, quarantines and the setting up of flu clinics form part of Malta's contingency plan if swine influenza develops into a full-blown pandemic.

Drafted in 2005 and later updated, the plan looks at avian influenza as the likely cause of a dreaded pandemic but would remain relevant in a swine flu scenario.

Swine influenza has not yet surfaced in Malta but has continued to spread around the globe.

Although health officials in the US - the second worst affected country after Mexico - said they were seeing encouraging signs that the new virus might be less severe than initially feared, precautions are still deemed necessary. With human-to-human spread confirmed in Britain there is a higher possibility of the disease reaching Malta.

But closing borders is out of the question. "There is no point in border closures. It is not practical at all," Public Health Regulation director general Ray Busuttil said. Studies have shown that closing 99 per cent of borders would only delay the disease entering a country by two weeks.

Work has already started to develop a vaccine against the swine virus. But some health experts have raised concerns that focusing limited manufacturing resources on a jab for this virus would leave the world without a vaccine for seasonal influenza, which can also be deadly.

Moreover, the vaccine against the swine virus is not expected for a number of months. By then, Malta may already have been struck by the first wave of the pandemic. Pandemics are known to come in waves, with the second wave of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic having affected the island more severely than the first wave.

The Health Division's Influenza Pandemic Contingency Plan looks at the possible need to close schools, churches and places of entertainment - including stopping weddings - to prevent the disease from spreading.

Originally Karin Grech Hospital was going to be converted into a flu hospital but plans have changed and Mater Dei would be used in a pandemic.

Dr Busuttil said plans were in hand to determine which wards would be vacated to be used by flu patients.

The plan states that non-urgent investigations and operations would be postponed and outpatient sessions stopped to help reduce the number of people going to hospital.