# 2512
On Saturday I blogged (see Japan Changes Focus on Pandemic Plan) on the changes to Japan's national pandemic plan which are expected to be finalized early next year.
The biggest change is a move away from strict containment (which was unlikely to work, anyway), to limiting the spread of the disease and mitigating it's social and economic impact.
Today, we get an editorial in the The Asahi Shimbun, where they call the move `long overdue'.
We get new detail on the overall government plan, including the closure of schools, and a two tiered attack plan. One for early in a pandemic, when hospitals would likely be able to treat most patients, and one for later in the pandemic, when most people would have to be treated at home.
This editorial is well worth following the links to read in its entirety.
EDITORIAL: New-strain influenza
2008/12/3
The government's basic stance on combating an outbreak of potentially disastrous influenza caused by a new strain of virus is about to undergo a major overhaul.
A panel representing the various ministries concerned completed drafting revisions to the government's existing action plan last week. The revised plan, which will be finalized early next year after input from the public, acknowledges that an overseas outbreak of a new-strain flu pandemic would inevitably reach Japan. Thus, the focus of the revisions is to prevent an outbreak from developing into a pandemic.
The current action plan is centered on trying to keep flu out of the nation and isolating infected people quickly. Facilities for such purposes have been set up, but the plan is still lacking in proactive measures to deal with a pandemic.
Many advanced nations already have measures in place to deal with a pandemic, having concluded that containing one would be impossible in densely populated urban areas. We must say our government's proposed change in policy was long overdue.
The panel also drafted guidelines on infection prevention and improvement of medical services, among other things. However, some of these guidelines are still based on past policies and lack coherence. The panel should review them thoroughly and put together effective measures without delay.
Any new-strain flu can quickly spread out of control because people have no immunity.
According to estimates by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, one in four residents would be infected; 2 million people would be hospitalized; and, in a worst-case scenario, 640,000 people would die. Hospitals and clinics are simply incapable of dealing with so many patients. The same would hold true even if this nation had a fully functional health care system.
The panel guidelines offer two different sets of flu-containment measures by drawing a distinction between the early stages of a pandemic when infections are at their lowest and the more advanced stages of widespread infection.
In the early stages, all patients would be hospitalized, and those who have been in contact with these flu-carriers would be urged to take Tamiflu or other anti-virus drugs for prevention. In the advanced stages, all but the gravely ill would be urged to recuperate at home, and Tamiflu would be dispensed only for treatment, not for prevention.
