New research has found plans for pandemics need to be far more versatile and include the possibility of engineered pathogens that escape from laboratories or are used in warfare.
University of Otago (Wellington) researchers led a study comparing the fast-moving influenza pandemic of 1918-19 and the continuing Covid-19 pandemic that began in 2020 to identify ongoing lessons for today and future pandemic planning.
Senior author and University of Otago (Wellington) public health researcher Prof Michael Baker said the influenza wave swept through the country in less than two months, infecting about half the population and killing more than 9000 people, before largely disappearing.
By contrast, more than three years after New Zealand recorded its first Covid-19 case, the pandemic is continuing and 20 people a week still die from it.
To date, the Covid death toll in New Zealand sits at 3347.
"It is important to establish whether a more strategic response, as was taken with Covid-19 elimination, performed better than the minimal public health response to influenza in 1918, and also whether we were able to deliver a more equitable response in 2020, compared with 1918 when the Māori mortality rate was more than seven times higher than for European New Zealanders."
Prof Baker said the findings strongly supported the vigorous elimination strategy taken by New Zealand for Covid-19.
However, co-author and University of Auckland Associate Prof Matire Harwood said Māori and Pacific peoples were still hospitalised and dying at significantly higher rates than the European population during the Covid-19 pandemic.
"That’s incredibly disappointing."
Poverty, inadequate housing and lower vaccination rates were factors driving the inequities, she said.
"Therefore, the principles of equity, partnership and active protection, as guaranteed in the Te Tiriti of Waitangi, continue to be inadequately addressed more than 100 years after the influenza pandemic."
Co-author and University of Otago (Wellington) Prof Nick Wilson said the study’s findings showed a need for a pandemic plan that covered a wide range of pandemic organisms and scenarios and a systematic approach to reduce health inequities.
"The plan at the start of 2020 was for influenza ... it was not designed for coronaviruses which are an emerging problem as we saw with Sars in 2003 and now Covid-19.
"Our previous plan largely accepted that we would simply let the pandemic wash over us — a mitigation strategy — as we did in 1918.
"Yet, as this analysis shows, we had much better outcomes with an elimination strategy.
"Future plans need to be far more versatile and even include the possibility of [dealing with] engineered pathogens that are used in warfare or escape from laboratories," he said.
