Pacific.Scoop
By Oceania Flash in Paris

Swine flu problem in New Caledonia. Photo: Les Nouvelles

The French government is sending medical back-up teams to both New Caledonia and French Polynesia  in the wake of a series of suspected H1N1 influenza-related deaths this week.

The medical teams will comprise a dozen doctors and nurses whose main task will be to provide additional support to local medical staff.

They are expected to arrive in the French Pacific early next week.

An expert for the French health watch institute INVS ( Institut de Veille Sanitaire) is also flying to New Caledonia to monitor the situation there, the government said in a release.

The move comes after a total of three suspected H1N1 influenza-related deaths  this week in New Caledonia, and another one in French Polynesia.

“We believe some health facilities are probably facing tensions, especially emergency, outpatients and intensive care,” French Director-General for Health Didier Houssin told French national television TF1.

Breathing machines
“There is also a need for breathing machines for persons who would be in a state of respiratory distress”.

In metropolitan France, the alert system has been maintained at level 5A, which reflects a situation whereby “interhuman transmission of an influenza virus is in existence in at least two non-neighbouring countries of the same continent”.

Further stocks of antiviral medication, especially for children, will also be sent and vaccines will be sent when they become available.

In French Polynesia, the emergency ad ambulance service will be granted an additional emergency mobile health clinic.

Still in the French Pacific, the third territory, Wallis and Futuna, will be subject to close monitoring, the French health ministry said.

Three fatalities
Health authorities in New Caledonia have on Friday reported two more fatal cases of H1N1 influenza-related death, bringing the number of H1N1-related deaths to three in less than a week.

Local health minister Philippe Dunoyer told a press conference late Friday in the capital Nouméa the two fatalities were a 58-year-old woman and a 27-year-old man, who both died earlier this week after being admitted in hospital, both suffering what has been described as “great respiratory distress”.

The formal cause of death has been labelled a “bilateral pneumopathy”, a complicating factor.

Both people were regarded as belonging to a “risk” group because of their condition.

The first case of a H1N1 flu-related fatality was reported on Wednesday this week in New Caledonia.

An eight-year old girl who died on Monday this week.

The young girl was however considered a risk case since she had been suffering from pneumonia in the past few weeks and had been placed under antiviral and antibiotic medication since last week, said New Caledonia’s social and health affairs department DASS.

The official number of H1N1 flu cases in New Caledonia is said to be around 360.

Visits by cruise liners from Australia, in recent months, have also triggered several scares in the French Pacific territory’s capital and outer islander, after it was discovered that some passengers were H1N1 positive but had not been quarantined.

Another fatality in the French Pacific, in French Polynesia, was also reported earlier this month after a woman died with symptoms of the latest strain of influenza.

It was however pointed out at the time that she was also suffering from an earlier debilitating medical condition which had placed her under the high risk category.

The case of a baby, earlier this week, is also currently investigated.

The New Caledonia and French Polynesia fatalities make up, so far, the bulk of all H1N1-related deaths (five) for the whole of France, including the mainland, where about 1000 cases have tested positive.

New Caledonia case study
In Paris, New Caledonia is under particular watch as a sort of case study in terms of response to the H1N1 virus in times of coincidence with other, older types of seasonal influenza in the cold season.

French health minister Roselyne Bachelot told French national media earlier this week that New Caledonia could be a “preview” of what lies ahead for metropolitan France, this autumn, when the cold seasons progressively arrives.

“New Caledonia is located in the Southern hemisphere. We are therefore following very closely what is happening in this hemisphere because this could be a preview of what could happen to us once we have entered into the autumn season and the cooler, then colder period,” she said.

In metropolitan France, the concern is that H1N1-related cases could significantly increase in a few weeks, when the European autumn and winter set in.

Recently, New Caledonian authorities decided to downgrade their initial response to H1N1 potential epidemic and in particular dropped the once mooted measures to systematically close down schools when only one case was detected.

The main reason behind the move, the government said, was that it had become obvious that H1N1 influenza could not be stopped and that therefore, to close down whole schools had become “impracticable” and “irrelevant”.

Source: Patrick Antoine Decloitre, Oceania Flash, Port Vila, Vanuatu