It aims to give a comprehensive overview of how Public Health will protect islanders from everything from commonplace communicable diseases, like whooping cough, to the emergency response to threats like an explosion at a nearby French nuclear power plant.
Dr Brink said everyone should be reassured that the threat of a nuclear incident was incredibly low, but she felt another pandemic was likely.
‘You always have to prepare for a pandemic, and I think we will see another pandemic,’ she said.
‘Pre the Covid pandemic, we had an influenza pandemic plan that’s changed to pandemic plan, so it focuses on planning for a pandemic irrespective of the causal agent.
‘That preparedness is really important, and we’ve underpinned three important points for that. The first is the precautionary approach, so when we’re faced with a new emerging pandemic threat, we have a precautionary approach whilst we understand more about the infectious agent. Linked to that is the response needs to be proportionate – no more and no less than what we need to cope with the situation. The third, really important point about the pandemic preparedness is the need to be agile – to adapt as new evidence and information becomes available.’
Dr Brink highlighted avian influenza activity as one possible future threat.
‘With bird flu, you get transmission from birds to humans, but you don’t get human-to-human transmission,’ she said.
‘If a change occurred where you got human-to-human transmission, you then would be in a situation where there certainly would be a pandemic threat.’
The report has been put together by the Bailiwick’s health protection forum, with contributions from across the island’s health professionals from the Infection Prevention and Control Team, to Environmental Health and even the States Veterinary Office.
‘Not only are we looking at notifiable communicable diseases, we are looking at infections, environmental health, and radiological and chemical threats,’ Dr Brink said.
‘What you’re seeing is this whole island’s approach to health and wellbeing, rather than people working in silos.’
She added the report was testament to their commitment to safeguarding the health of the community.
‘Through effective collaboration and a “One Health approach”, which recognises the links between human, animal, and environmental health,’ she said. ‘We are better equipped to address the complex challenges posed by infectious diseases and environmental threats.’
Dr Brink said that there were a number of reports due to be published this year, including one into vaccination numbers, sexual health and a more detailed nuclear accident framework.
‘Putting information into the public domain is so important,’ she said.
‘We aim to move to reporting all our screening programmes and vaccination programmes to be as transparent as possible about the island’s health.’
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