{"id":16205,"date":"2014-10-07T12:30:25","date_gmt":"2014-10-07T01:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=16205"},"modified":"2014-10-08T11:31:58","modified_gmt":"2014-10-08T00:31:58","slug":"readers-response-three-lessons-for-australia-from-the-ebola-outbreak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/readers-response-three-lessons-for-australia-from-the-ebola-outbreak\/","title":{"rendered":"Reader\u2019s response: three lessons for Australia from the Ebola outbreak"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ebola<\/a>While it\u2019s possible we could get an Ebola case in Australia, the chances are pretty low, with no direct flights between here and the west African countries most affected<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Those countries also now have in place Ebola screening<\/a> at their airports. But as Rod Lyon notes in his recent post<\/a>: \u2018most Ebola victims aren\u2019t travelling anywhere fast\u2019.<\/p>\n

So the good news is that the likelihood of Ebola overwhelming our health system here is low: it would be simple fear-mongering to suggest otherwise.<\/p>\n

Even though Ebola poses little risk to our general population, Australia\u2019s Chief Medical Officer has said<\/a> that our facilities would be able to contain any cases here and prevent it from spreading further: \u2018We have a tried and true system in relation to our quarantine officers\u2026 and our health system is really well-placed to manage where there is a concern of a disease of this nature\u2019.<\/p>\n

Queensland\u2019s chief health officer recently said Australia\u2019s Ebola preparations had been successfully trialed<\/a> three weeks ago. A Gold Coast man claimed to be sick on the back of a visit to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in central Africa, hit by a separate outbreak of the disease. He was found not to have Ebola.<\/p>\n

But being able to treat an isolated case of Ebola here wouldn\u2019t provide the most accurate assessment of the ability of Australia\u2019s health-care system to respond to a widespread infectious disease outbreak. If a large-scale influenza pandemic occurred in Australia, for example, and spread more quickly than anticipated, then the surge capacity of our health response systems would almost certainly be rapidly overwhelmed.<\/p>\n

We still don’t think enough in this country about our public-health system\u2019s need to develop surge capabilities<\/a> to handle a large influx of patients over a short period of time and our ability to provide adequate care for persons with special medical needs.<\/p>\n

There\u2019re no minimum standards for national disaster planning that relate, for example, to the number of critical-care beds or operating theatres required. No hospital sets aside intensive-care-unit beds: instead they rely on rather vague notions of making beds or space available depending on the disaster case load<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Bali bombings didn\u2019t really test the system: the small number of patients was easily absorbed, and the same applies for victims of the Black Saturday bush fires in Victoria.<\/p>\n

Most of our health-care facilities are now operating at close to their maximum capacities, and hospitals have fewer resources for preparedness in harsh financial times.<\/p>\n

So the first take\u2013away from the Ebola outbreak is that it reminds us that we need to ensure we\u2019ve got a robust public-health system that can adapt to the challenges that an infectious disease outbreak might pose at home.<\/p>\n

The second lesson from the Ebola case stems from Rod\u2019s point that \u2018countries that already have strong health systems are better placed to respond to Ebola\u2019. He\u2019s right: so it makes perfect sense that we should help other countries not only to fight specific diseases like malaria<\/a> and HIV<\/a> but to build up their public-health infrastructure. That\u2019s the best way<\/a> we will help in preventing infectious diseases from reaching us, and keeping our public safe.<\/p>\n

The third lesson of the Ebola case for Australia arises from Rod\u2019s point that there\u2019s a legitimate concern about the prospect of \u2018diseases without borders\u2019, given the \u2018growing viral superhighway that globalisation provides<\/a>\u2019.<\/p>\n

The key point here is one that an Australian parliamentary report<\/a> into health issues across international borders highlighted last year: a disease outbreak in one country can easily spread to another, so we\u2019ll need to have open lines of communication with health officials in different countries to share information for effective disease surveillance.<\/p>\n

Anthony Bergin<\/em><\/a> is deputy director of ASPI. Image courtesy of CDC Global<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While it\u2019s possible we could get an Ebola case in Australia, the chances are pretty low, with no direct flights between here and the west African countries most affected. Those countries also now have in …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":16208,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[982,307,987],"class_list":["post-16205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-ebola-virus","tag-emergency-services","tag-health"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nReader\u2019s response: three lessons for Australia from the Ebola outbreak | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/readers-response-three-lessons-for-australia-from-the-ebola-outbreak\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Reader\u2019s response: three lessons for Australia from the Ebola outbreak | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"While it\u2019s possible we could get an Ebola case in Australia, the chances are pretty low, with no direct flights between here and the west African countries most affected. 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