Travel website slow to issue swine flu warning

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This was published 14 years ago

Travel website slow to issue swine flu warning

By Mex Cooper

The world may be in a panic over swine flu but you would never have known it judging by the Australian Government's official travel warning website.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade was slow to issue a general travel bulletin on swine flu, despite the World Health Organisation raising its pandemic alert level from three to four overnight.

Swine mess ... The Federal Government's Smart Traveller website is short on swine flu information.

Swine mess ... The Federal Government's Smart Traveller website is short on swine flu information.

The front page of the department's travel website www.smartraveller.gov.au, which since been updated, instead alerted travellers to piracy in the Gulf of Aden.

The World Health Organisation's website (www.who.int) and official travel advice websites for the New Zealand, British and US governments all led with information on the H1N1 virus, which is believed responsible for around 150 deaths in Mexico.

The US and Britain warned against travelling to Mexico, but DFAT had not issued a similar warning.

DFAT had issued bulletins for Avian flu and the Tasmanian Legislative Council Elections, but there was no general advice on the virus making headlines around the world on the front page of smartraveller, which Federal Health Minister Nicole Roxon yesterday advised people to check.

A search for the words 'swine flu' on the website also led to a dead end.

Browsers had to search for Mexico under the website's list of destinations to find information on the flu strain, which was then listed under a warning about the high level of crime related to the country's drug wars.

The advice told travellers that the WHO advised Australia of an influenza outbreak in the United States and Mexico on April 24 and that yesterday cases had also been identified in Canada.

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"You should consult a doctor or the nearest hospital immediately if you develop flu-like symptoms," the website reads.

A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesman said he would look into why a general travel bulletin had not yet been issued in relation to swine flu and no warning appeared on the website's front page.

A spokeswoman for Roxon said the website would be updated.

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"The Smartraveller website has up-to-date information on swine flu for individual countries," she said.

"To ensure ease of navigation of the website a link will be posted on the homepage
shortly."

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