Monday, March 01, 2010
IT would have been irresponsible not to have been prepared for a major swine flu outbreak even though that scenario failed to materialise, the Health Service Executive said yesterday.
HSE director of population health Dr Pat Doorley said pandemic viruses by their nature were unpredictable and there was always the fear that it could mutate and become nasty.
The World Health Organisation warned last week that the H1N1 virus had not peaked and that countries should continue to keep their guard up. Infection rates have been declining in many parts of the world, including Ireland.
The HSE’s latest update for the week February 15 to 21 shows that just one case of swine flu was confirmed and no cases were hospitalised. There have been 4,583 confirmed swine flu cases and 22 deaths reported to date.
Children and young adults remain the most affected groups with 80% of cases less that 35 years of age.
Last July the Department of Health and the HSE warned that a quarter of the population could become infected with the virus.
Dr Doorley said it would have been irresponsible not to be prepared for a major swine flu epidemic even though that did not happen.
"We had to make some assumptions. They were not predictions, they were assumptions. So we were preparing for the worst," he said on RTÉ radio yesterday.
There had been 22 deaths, 1,100 people had been admitted to hospital, and over 100 were in intensive care.
"It would not do justice to those people to suggest it was a trivial event," he said.
Dr Doorley denied the Government was in panic when it purchased €3.8m vaccines. He said negotiations were underway between the authorities and the drug companies in an effort to reclaim some of the millions of euro spent on the public health campaign.
HSE clinics will be open until the end of March for anyone wanting to avail of the free vaccination.
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