Email sent to Reserve Bank employees on the Bank's pandemic planning
31 October 2005
To Reserve Bank employees
Many of you will be aware of work currently being undertaken by Government agencies to prepare New Zealand for a potential outbreak of pandemic influenza. This email is to update you on progress so far, and to inform you of our thinking and Government planning.
The Ministry of Health is leading New Zealand's work in planning and preparing for a possible influenza pandemic. Many scientists and global public health officials are predicting this is likely to strike sometime in the future, but no one knows when, or how severe a pandemic might be.
The current work programme has been prompted by international concern that the H5N1 avian influenza virus causing illness in poultry and a small number of people may mutate, or combine with the human influenza virus (the `flu) to create a new virulent strain that could easily be transmitted from human to human. It is important to emphasise that this has not happened yet, and no one can predict with any certainty whether it will. And if it does that it will reach New Zealand. But we need to plan for this worst-case possibility, and that is what we are currently doing.
Fortunately, New Zealand was one of the first countries in the world to develop a pandemic preparedness plan. Broadly, it has five components:
- Planning for it - the current phase
- Keeping it out - border management
- Stamping it out - cluster control operations
- Managing it - full pandemic measures
- Recovering from it - putting in place measures to return services to normal.
Our contribution to the planning phase crosses a number of areas:
- Adrian Orr represents us on the Committee of Officials for Domestic and External Security Co-ordination (ODESC), which co-ordinates the whole-of-Government response.
- Adrian will also be working with banks and other financial institutions to ensure that critical functions are able to be maintained.
- Grant Spencer and Michael Reddell are assisting other Government agencies to assess potential economic effects and responses.
- Don Abel is co-ordinating our internal business continuity planning.
What is clear is that our planning will follow a graduated approach to the severity of the pandemic threat if and when it emerges. However, there are some measures that can be taken now to keep our working environment safe and these will be advised by Human Resources over the coming months.
In the worst-case situation of a full-scale pandemic, it is envisaged that all staff would stay at home, with a limited number maintaining critical functions from there.
As our planning firms up, you will be kept in touch with the details.
In the meantime the Ministry of Health website has a comprehensive section on Pandemic Influenza planning that is regularly updated. It contains, for example:
- a downloadable fact sheet on seasonal influenza, avian influenza and pandemic influenza (please find this fact sheet attached to this e-mail);
- guidelines on the use of personal protective equipment (masks, gloves, etc);
- information on the use of the anti-viral Tamiflu;
- frequently asked questions - including tips on what people can do now to prepare for an influenza pandemic, and what people should do at home in the event of a pandemic;
- advice for travellers to Asia.
Although the Ministry of Health has stockpiled 850, 000 courses of Tamiflu, it is assumed that this will be used in the first instance for health professionals and other critical first-line responders as well as to combat specific outbreaks of the influenza.
It is disappointing that we need to be planning for the possibility of such a far-reaching event and it will certainly be the subject of much media speculation over the coming period. I am determined that we will have in place the best possible plans to ensure the safety of everyone while continuing to operate our critical systems and activities.
Regards
Alan Bollard
Attachment: Influenza factsheet (available from
http://www.moh.govt.nz/moh.nsf/indexmh/pandemicinfluenza-resources-factsheets)
