# 2026
While this story highlights Australia, the same could be said for many other countries as well, including the United States. Very little has been done to integrate our primary care givers, the General Practitioners, into state and national pandemic plans.
The idea that a pandemic is simply a public health problem is both naïve and dangerous. It will take a coordinated effort, by all agencies, and by all practitioners, to help mitigate a pandemic.
Most doctors I've talked to have received little or no guidance on what to expect during the next pandemic. They have no idea whether antivirals will be available, in what quantity, or how they will be distributed. Some are woefully unaware of the pandemic threat.
They've been basically left out of the loop.
State and local plans are great, and necessary, but unless they filter down to the local level, and to the individual medical practices, they will have little impact on patients and the health care community.
This from ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) News.
GPs sidelined in bird flu fight: study
By David Mark
It's been 11 years since six people in Hong Kong died after contracting the H5N1 virus more commonly known as bird flu.
Since then, more than 240 people have died from the disease.
That number may seem large, but it pales compared to the hundreds of thousands or millions that could die if the virus mutates and a pandemic takes hold.
Australia has a plan to fight a pandemic, but the Australian National University's Associate Professor Mohammed Patel says it's a flawed one.
"The national plan mentions general practice very infrequently, besides it's not the national plan that's the critical one here, it's the state plans," Professor Patel told The World Today.
"Do they spell out very clearly how general practices will work with each other?
"The answer is those details, operational details are not covered in the current plans."
Professor Patel has compared the plans of all state governments in Australia with similar strategies in Canada, New Zealand, Great Britain and the US, and found Australia comes up short.
"The first deficiency is that the key role of general practices is not highlighted and the likely reason is that the drivers in these plans are health departments, particularly those responsible from a population health perspective," he said.
"Health departments do the public health side, but the clinical practice is run by so-called private small businesses, which are general practitioners.
"The two are very poorly integrated in these plans."
Rod Pearce, chairman of the Australian Medical Association's Council of General Practice, says the group feels that GPs have been excluded from the planning process.
