Australian Health Management Plan for Pandemic Influenza

6.2 Severity

Four main factors will be taken into account when assessing the severity of a pandemic:

• direct health impact in terms of death rate and the severity of the illness
• health system impact in terms of the ability of our health services to provide care
• social impact in terms of absenteeism and how well society can continue to function and provide essential services
• psychosocial impact of the pandemic.

Governments and researchers are working on ways to measure the overall impact of a pandemic accurately. Forward planning tools are being developed to allow experts to estimate what the likely impact would be so that decision makers will be able to take pre-emptive action to try to remain ahead of the pandemic.

Every effort will be made to ensure that decisions taken will:

• be proportionate to the threat
• be based on the best available information at the time
• take into account the impact of the decision, both within the health sector and more broadly on the economy and society.

In the early stages of the pandemic, actions will be based on our pandemic planning assumptions, and on any relevant information from overseas. Later in the pandemic, if there was information to suggest that the impact of the pandemic on health and society is different to that anticipated, a more flexible and tailored use of resources would be implemented.

In addition, the control measures and response would be tailored if the impact of the pandemic were shown to be more severe for certain groups or disproportionately affecting the availability of some resources.

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This information is current for 03 September, 2010
This information was issued on 05 December, 2008