The Melbourne Newsroom

Dr Jodie McVernon says it was inevitable that swine flu would eventually hit our shores following confirmation this morning of three cases in Melbourne. Yet she assures Melbourne residents that these cases are not an indication of “wider community risk”.

Dr McVernon says surveillance measures put in place by the Department of Human Services upon the outbreak of swine flu aided containment of the virus to three boys from one family.

Australia well prepared to face swine flu outbreak, says Director of the Nossal Institute for Global Health at the University of Melbourne, Professor Graham Brown

Professor Brown says he is not surprised that the World Health Organisation has called the recent outbreak of swine flu a public health emergency of international concern.

This has been noted as an epidemic of potential concern as the World Health organisation want to act early; because the flu has traveled outside Mexico, there is a risk of it becoming a pandemic, he says.