Queensland Paramedics Demanded Respirators To Deal With Bird Flu Victims

Sounds like the paramedics of Queensland, Australia, are way ahead of their international colleagues, in many respects, in their demands for proper safety equipment to deal with eventual human victims of H5N1 :

An international conference has been told Queensland paramedics have respirators to protect them against bird flu.

Darren Hall headed a pandemic planning project for the Queensland Ambulance Service.

He says masks with a variety of filters were handed out after researchers studied paramedics' attitudes towards the threat of bird flu.

"They've conducted a study into the perceptions of paramedics and paramedics have said quite clearly they wanted effective personal protective equipment, they wanted good notification, they wanted communication and those sorts of things would enable them to come to work and do those sorts of things," he said.