SUVA – Health teams working in Fiji in the aftermath of Cyclone Winston say the health situation has stabilised and they are not yet seeing large levels of mosquito, food and water-borne disease.

Australia and New Zealand sent medical teams to Fiji straight after the cyclone which flattened villages and left 44 people dead.

A New Zealand medical team leader now seconded to Fiji’s Ministry of Health, Ryan McLane, told Radio New Zealand’s Dateline Pacific the worst is not over yet and the authorities are keeping a close eye out for infectious disease.

“I would have expected to see it but Fiji has a strong infrastructure and quite a few of the response teams for the western Pacific are based here so when this hit they were well informed on what needed to be done as far as clean water provision, clean food provision to prevent these types of diseases from popping up.

“Now I’m not saying that this still couldn’t occur, that’s why we’re still here helping in any way they request, but at the moment we aren’t seeing the kind of syndromic presentation of infectious diseases that would suggest that the disaster was ongoing.

DATELINE PACIFIC: Yes because it could be several weeks, I guess, before that sort of thing can manifest itself?

“Certainly, particularly mosquito-borne illnesses. Immediately after the storm you’re not going to have any mosquitoes. They would have been destroyed in the storm itself.

“However, we’re now far enough out that we’re getting hatchlings and new larva and there’s going to be a lot of standing water because of the destruction from the storm and it’s going to be difficult to keep those mosquito levels down.

“Same thing with water, clean water and ration provisions. At the moment getting bottled water out to the villages is fine but in the long term we need to rebuild the infrastructure to make sure they have consistent sanitation and consistent clean water to avoid these diseases.

“And as I said, the Fijian government is doing most of this and they’re very active in doing so.”

DATELINE PACIFIC: And what about the capacity to deal with just the normal health problems that are going to happen anyway. Have these been put on the backburner or is the system able to cope with everything?

“The number of ongoing chronic illnesses, just day to day problems, has not been as significant as I would have expected in the areas that I was in, particularly on Koro Island.

“Because the teams that had been deployed from Viti Levu out to assist in these areas and the extra hours that all the medical staff in-country had put in to make sure that not only did they address the disaster related response, but it didn’t allow the general health of the country to degenerate, to slip.

“ So as of yet, although certainly elective surgeries and the like have been deferred in some cases, a real degradation in the health status of the country as a whole, I haven’t seen that occur.

DATELINE PACIFIC: Psychological problems as a result of the disaster, that’s also a health concern isn’t it?

“Very much so, particularly children that live through these storms. If you can imagine a storm with sustained winds of 210 kilometres an hour that have sat on a village for eight consecutive hours and the volume of damage and the noise and the fear generated by something like that.

“It definitely has effects and one of the first groups that were deployed on Koro, I was very glad to see, not only were there nurses and doctors there but there were counsellors who’d been deployed right from the first to reach out to people, to have discussions in the villages, to talk to parents about how to help their children understand what had happened.

“Because it’s a massively traumatic event and the psycho-social health of the people is really important. It’s going to be an ongoing issue for quite a while I imagine.”

DATELINE PACIFIC: So what happens when teams like the New Zealand team leave? How is Fiji going to cope?

“I would say pretty well. I’m confident enough to say quite well. As I’ve said Fiji’s response has been strong. They need ongoing assistance from neighbours and allies, particularly as far as material goes.

“They have trained staff that can provide the services they need. They don’t necessarily in all cases have the kind of material they need or the transport infrastructure to get it to everywhere where they need to send this type of assistance.

“So I think that Fiji from what I’ve seen has the capability on the ground, as far as personnel, to do what needs to be done but they can certainly use some ongoing assistance in the logistical and infrastructure side.

“The response and the co-ordination with the Fijian government has demonstrated not just the efficacy of Fiji’s preparations but how useful even a small group offering really targeted assistance can be in these situations.

“They needed very specific things, sea lift, air lift, supplies and some specialities – and between Australia and New Zealand those were provided.”

- Dateline Pacific