2009 swine flu pandemic in Australia

In Victoria 2,440 cases were reported,[7] including 24 deaths. An 11-year-old boy, and later his 2 brothers, were confirmed on 20 May to carry the virus.[19] Victorian health authorities closed Clifton Hill Primary School for two days on 21 May, initially, after the three brothers returned to the school from a trip to Disneyland.[20] Another case delayed the reopening of the school until Thursday 28 May 2009.[21][22] On 23 May about 22 year-nine students of Mill Park Secondary College were given anti-viral Tamiflu after one of their classmates was diagnosed with swine flu. The same situation happened for students in year nine at the University High School in Parkville and also for the Melton campus of Mowbray College after a year 10 student contracted the virus .[21] A 35-year-old man from Colac died on 20 June 2009 at Maroondah Hospital after going to Colac Hospital the previous day.[23] On 23 June 2009, the second swine flu related death in Victoria was reported, that of a 50-year-old woman at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre.[24] A third death was reported on 25 June.[25] Two more deaths were reported on the weekend of 27 and 28 June.[26] Two more deaths were reported on 1 July, which included a 3-year-old.[27] Four more deaths were recorded on 8 July.[28]

In New South Wales 51 deaths were recorded. The first confirmed death in New South Wales occurred on 29 June[29] and a second man died on 3 July.[30]

South Australia recorded 28 deaths, plus a 'clinical positive' where the test was inconclusive and, after swine-flu-like symptoms were reported, Tamiflu was administered, thus making a future positive confirmation unlikely.[31] Adelaide high schools Eynesbury Senior College and Blackfriars Priory School closed for a week.[32] The first confirmed death from swine flu in South Australia was a 26-year-old Aboriginal man from Kiwirrkurra Community in the Western Desert of Western Australia who died in Royal Adelaide Hospital on 19 June.[33]

The Australian Capital Territory recorded 2 deaths and confirmed 920 cases by 28 August 2009.[2] Two of the earliest casualties contracted the disease while on the Pacific Dawn cruise ship.[34] The first death in the ACT occurred on 28 July 2009.[35]
During the last week of July 2009, Radford College's year 12 cohort was asked to stay home, after a spike of influenza through the year.

There were 27 confirmed deaths in Western Australia. On 26 June 2009, a 26-year-old woman was the first person to die in the state. A 26-year-old Western Australian man died in Adelaide on 19 June.[33]

Tasmania recorded seven deaths.[36] The first person to die in Tasmania was an 85-year-old woman who died in Royal Hobart Hospital on 5 July.[37]

The Northern Territory confirmed the first infection of a person on 30 May 2009.[38] By this time, six people in the territory had died. The first person in the Territory to die from the epidemic was a man in his early 50s who died at the Royal Darwin Hospital on 6 July.[33]

In 2008, the Australian government prepared for a possible flu pandemic by creating the Australian Health Management Plan for Pandemic Influenza (AHMPPI). When the outbreak hit its peak in 2009, this plan went into action. The plan followed six steps:

1. ALERT: Before the pandemic even began, the country was following ALERT protocol. This entailed watching out for a possible pandemic.
2. DELAY: Activated 28 April 2009 with the goal to prevent the virus from coming into Australia for as long as possible.
3. CONTAIN: Activated on 22 May 2009 after several cases of H1N1 flu were reported in various states of Australia. This phase of the plan aimed to contain the spread of the flu by encouraging those who were sick to stay home, quarantine, and isolate themselves. This also gave authorities in all states the option to close schools if students were at risk.[13] All states and territories ordered students returning from countries where flu was widespread (Canada, Japan, Mexico, Panama and United States) not to return to school for a week after entering Australia.[42] States outside Victoria decided to prevent students returning to school for a week if they had visited Victoria.[43]
4. SUSTAIN: On 3 June 2009, the state of Victoria escalated from CONTAIN to SUSTAIN. The SUSTAIN phase in Victoria meant that less effort was given to tracing and testing, as there would have been insufficient resources available to do this. Antiviral drugs in this phase were only available to confirmed cases or their immediate contacts.[14]
5. CONTROL
6. RECOVER

• PROTECT: A new phase of the plan that was activated in June 2009 to identify and protect the populations that were the most at risk of fatality from the flu.[44]

The Australian Government had a stockpile of 40 million surgical grade face masks. However, stocks of face masks in pharmacies were depleted due to personal purchases.[45] The World Health Organization Influenza Centre in North Melbourne was attempting to develop a vaccine for swine flu by growing the live virus as found in California, in chicken embryos.[46] The first one-litre batch of vaccine was announced to be ready on 29 June 2009 by the University of Queensland, but would not be available for use until it was registered as safe with the regulatory authority.[47]

A Commonwealth Health hotline for Swine Influenza was set up on Australian phone number 1802007 by the Department of Health and Ageing.[48] The Australian Government set up a health emergency web site.[49] Daily tallies of suspected cases were given.[50]

The Tasmanian Government set up a Tasmanian Action Plan for Human Influenza Pandemic.[51]

The Queensland Government had an action plan prepared in 2008[52] and a business continuity plan in 2006.[53] The Australian Capital Territory Chief Medical Officer, Dr Charles Guest, claimed that procedures and systems were very good to detect and respond to the disease outbreak.[54] South Australia nominated eight hospitals to handle the flu: Royal Adelaide, Flinders Medical Centre or Women's and Children's Hospital, Berri, Mount Gambier, Port Lincoln, Whyalla or Port Augusta.[55] The Victorian Government Department of Human Services had a nurse on call to answer questions on the topic.[56]

CSL Limited started to produce a vaccine to immunize against swine flu. The Australian Government ordered ten million doses of the new vaccine.[57][58]

In Melbourne, seven special clinics for influenza opened on 29 May.[59]

Per recommendations by the World Health Organization, Australia decided against closing their borders during the DELAY phase of the outbreak. There were also no restrictions of travel to and from countries where outbreaks were occurring.[60] However, starting on 30 April, thermal imaging was applied to passenger arrivals at international airports and arriving passengers were required to fill in a card. Customs officers checked aeroplane cabins prior to disembarkation of passengers to look for people with flu symptoms.[45]

The Australian Government created a nationwide campaign project that encouraged Australians to take up healthy practices such as adequate hand washing, avoiding people who were more susceptible to death from the flu, and getting the vaccine that was available. This was done in media, print, and radio forms so that it could reach the most people as possible. Another main focus of the Australian campaign was to dispel myths about the flu in order to provide citizens with the most factual information available at the time.[61] A large scale immunization effort against swine flu started on Monday 28 September 2009.

At the peak of the outbreak, Australia had a stockpile of 8.7 million doses of Tamiflu and Relenza to combat the virus.[62]