A framework for an Australian influenza pandemic plan.

"Version 1, June 1999"

At head of cover title: Communicable diseases intelligence

The world will experience another influenza pandemic in the foreseeable future. It could occur at any time, with the potential to cause major and perhaps catastrophic effects across the globe - death, illness, and massive social and economic disruption. Influenza pandemics occur capriciously and unpredictably, when a major genetic shift in the influenza virus throws up a new subtype to which the world population has little or no immunity. There have been three this century, and the most devastating, the "Spanish flu" of 1918-19, killed at least 20 million people. Forward planning can go some way to minimising or mitigating the effects. All pandemic threats need to be treated with the same high level of concern and strategies for control and response need to be activated as early as possible. The Influenza Pandemic Planning Committee (IPPC) has therefore been established by the Communicable Diseases Network Australia and New Zealand (CDNANZ) to develop a preparedness plan for pandemic influenza in Australia. This publication provides a strategic framework for the detection and management of pandemic influenza in Australia. It provides a national framework for policy, and direction for the development of plans at the State/Territory and local level, enabling States and Territories to link their own pandemic contingency plans (either existing or future) to the national plan