“We have been warned” preparing now to prevent the next pandemic | OPEN ACCESS
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‘COVID-19: Make it the Last Pandemic’ is the aspirational title of the recently released report by the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response.[[1]] This panel, co-chaired by Helen Clark and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, was convened in mid-2020 by the World Health Organization (WHO) to assess the global handling of COVID-19.
The report is predictably grim reading. The panel found weak links at every point in the chain of preparedness and response. Preparation was inconsistent and underfunded, alert systems were too slow and meek, WHO was under-powered, responses exacerbated inequities and global leadership was absent.
Tom Pullar-Strecker05:00, Jun 03 2021
SIMON O CONNOR/STUFF
A comprehensive system of electronic health records was once due to be in place by 2014 and has now been reborn, in a different form.
Hopes are rising that the health service may be on the verge of a big step forward in its use of information technology after the Government allocated $400 million in the Budget to making improvements. But Ernie Newman, former chief executive of the Technology Users Association, said a deep cultural shift would be needed to knock the sector into shape. Most of the $400m will be spent on a new health information platform known as Hira that revives an ‘on-again, off-again’ effort to create a set of integrated electronic health records for the population.
Ransomware Attack Still Disrupting IT Systems of New Zealand Hospitals
Systems are still down a week after a ransomware attack disrupted the IT network of five hospitals in the New Zealand district of Waikato, and concerns remain that private patient information may have been exposed.
Patients are being asked to arrive at appointments with paper documents and banks are urged to honor automatic payments to hospital staff who were either underpaid or not paid at all, a week after the Waikato District Health Board said it experienced a full outage of its information services.
By Tuesday, manual processes were implemented to support the backlog of patients while the public was reminded to “seek alternative avenues of treatment unless they are critically unwell.”
Fong said the man had contact with a soldier - the husband of the woman in Makoi - on the day of his discharge from the managed isolation quarantine facility. He said the fourth case is a 68-year-old man in Rakiraki, while the fifth case is a border quarantine patient. Fiji now has 116 Covid-19 cases, with 49 active and 28 locally-transmitted patients.
Fiji Government/Facebook New Zealand commits more resources Aotearoa is to donate 500,000 jabs of Covid-19 vaccines to Fiji, enough to immunise 250,000 people. The AstraZeneca shots will come from New Zealand s domestic supply and be shipped to Fiji at the earliest opportunity according to government ministers from the two countries.
New Zealand to donate 250,000 courses of COVID-19 vaccines to Fiji
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New Zealand has offered, and Fiji has accepted, sufficient doses of AstraZeneca for 250,000 people from New Zealand’s domestic vaccine portfolio, New Zealand Associate Minister of Health and Foreign Affairs Aupito William Sio and Fiji Health and Medical Services Minister Ifereimi Waqainabete announced today.
“New Zealand and Fiji are working together closely to support Fiji with access to safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines at the earliest opportunity,” the Ministers said.
Both Ministers stressed that there are still a number of steps to work through before the vaccines can be delivered. The vaccine still has to be approved by Medsafe before it can be used in New Zealand and donated to Fiji.