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On 100-year anniversary of influenza outbreak that killed 9000 Kiwis, fresh concerns arise

About 9000 Kiwis died after soldiers returning from WW1 brought the disease home with them.

Today marks 100 years since influenza was declared a notifiable disease in New Zealand during a global pandemic that killed 50 million people.

Between mid-October and mid-December 1918, 9000 people died from the infection in New Zealand.

Relative to today's population, the equivalent death toll would be 37,500 people.

"There was an enormous crisis in all NZ towns, first of all dealing with the sick, because so many people got sick all at once so shops had no customers or staff," Black November author Geoffrey Rice said.

As soldiers returned to the country at the end of World War I, they brought the influenza disease with them and spread it around the regions unknowingly.

While local efforts to control the flu were well-organised and effective, the national response was slow, Mr Rice said.

"We did the best we could, you have to remember people knew nothing about viruses in those days and it was long before the days of antibiotics."

The 1918 pandemic hit young adults in particular and Mr Rice estimates at least a third of the total population of 1.15 million were impacted, some with irreversible damage to their health.

The majority of victims died from secondary pneumonia infections.

"This flu caused such severe pneumonia, such terrible inflammation of the lung lining that the lungs would fill up with blood… the face would turn dusky purple," he said.

"Many towns set up temporary hospitals in schools and church halls - then you had the problem dealing with the bodies because so many people died at once."

Mr Rice said the death rate for Māori was seven times higher than for Pākeha.

On November 7, a ship from Auckland arrived in Apia, Samoa.

Sick passengers were allowed to disembark and as a result the disease spread quickly through the islands.

It's estimated 8500 people died in Samoa, a loss of 22 per cent of the population.

Professor Michael Baker from the University of Otago Wellington's public health department is concerned our country is falling out of step with many westernised countries when it comes to dealing with outbreaks of contagious diseases.

"New Zealand really is the odd one out now in not having an agency whose job it is to do the surveillance and control of these events," Mr Baker said.

While the Ministry of Health has a "great pandemic plan with excellent people working on this," he said, the country is lacking the infrastructure to implement the plan with speed and effectiveness.

"We do need an institutional change so we have an organisation whose mission is to manage pandemic events and also to manage public health prevention between times," Mr Baker said.

Mr Baker was part of the response team during the 2009 influenza pandemic H1N1.

"It was chaos and remember that pandemic was no worse than seasonal influenza and it still was difficult to know how to manage it."

But the Ministry of Health refutes the need for a central agency to manage outbreaks.

MOH Director of Emergency Management Charlie Blanch said preparations are ongoing to make sure the department is prepared for any hazard.

"I think we've got a very comprehensive approach to emergency management, we've got a strong integrated surveillance system that uses a range of different agencies and sectors that are best placed for the type of diseases that they're trying to spot," he said.

Mr Blanch said the department ran a four-phase national pandemic exercise over the last year to ensure staff understood what key decisions are necessary to make.

He said every local outbreak is also an opportunity to test and refine systems.

Events will be held around the country this month to mark the country’s worst ever public health crisis.

Barbara Mulligan, co-ordinator of the Karori Cemetery 1918 influenza project, said while multiple occasions from WWI are remembered and marked annually, the flu is less well-known.

"It killed 9000 people in New Zealand, when there were 18,000 men killed in the war [WWI] so it actually was a huge number of the population."

Ms Mulligan is leading a working group to clean the headstones of the 660 influenza victims buried in Karori Cemetery.

"It was me who kind of came up with the idea, walking my dog around, realising that there were people buried lying together but in a poor state of repair and overgrown."

A commemoration service will be held at the cemetery on the last Sunday of November and visitors can take part in guided tours of the grave yard.

The Government is planning to install a plaque to remember the 1918 influenza pandemic at Pukeahu National War Memorial Park in February next year, a Ministry for Culture and Heritage spokesperson said.

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