Maybe they should spend less time trying to ban soda drinks

Stuff reports:

Public health officials have been “taken to task” by the health minister for woeful communication following a fatal typhoid outbreak in Auckland. …

Adding to the minster’s anger was the fact that health officials failed to tell him about the outbreak and he found out from watching TV news on Friday, three days after a woman died from the disease. …

It took ARPHS three days to publicly announce the outbreak, and a further three days before it confirmed someone had died.

Members of the woman’s church were unaware she had an infectious disease, and hugged and kissed her as she was dying.

More than a dozen others have since been confirmed with typhoid.

A fellow church member said she rushed to hospital when she heard her friend was dying.

“There was no protective gear, no signs to say that she was affected, or that she may have typhoid fever,” she told RNZ.

“There was nothing to say we were not allowed to touch, or have any body contact with her.

“The first we knew that she died of typhoid was from media coverage, and this really really upset the church.”

Public health officials seem to spend a huge amount of their time working on lobbying campaigns to tax soft drinks, introduce plain packaging, ban advertisements, restrict supermarket hours etc etc.  Maybe a bit more focus on infectious diseases such as Typhoid!