Dedicated clinics can reduce impact of flu pandemic: Study

Opening clinics dedicated to treating influenza can limit the number of infected people and help to flatten the curve or reduce the peak prevalence rate, say researchers.

While the work focused on influenza, the findings, published in the journal PLOS One are relevant for policymakers seeking ways to reduce impacts of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

"Dedicated clinics would have less of an impact than interventions such as vaccination, but at the statewide level, we're talking about cutting the overall number of infections by six figures," said study author Julie Swann from the North Carolina State University in the US.

"And while our work here focused on the H1N1 strain of influenza, the findings are useful as we grapple with how best to respond to COVID-19," Swann added.

The research team was inspired to do the study by the fact that some hospitals opened dedicated H1N1 clinics during the H1N1 influenza pandemic in 2009-2010.

These clinics focused exclusively on treating patients who were exhibiting symptoms of H1N1.

There was some question at the time as to whether these clinics were a good use of limited resources.

It was also unclear as to whether the clinics may have had unintended consequences, such as spreading H1N1 to patients who showed up at the dedicated clinic with flu-like symptoms but didn't actually have the disease.For this study, the research team used a simulation model to address questions related to the ultimate impact of dedicated clinics during an H1N1 pandemic.

The researchers found that opening dedicated clinics reduced disease spread and hospitalizations, particularly when open during the periods of peak prevalence - when most people are sick.

Specifically, the researchers found that if dedicated clinics were open for the entire duration of the pandemic, the clinics would have reduced the overall number of infections by 0.4-1.5 per cent; reduced peak prevalence by 0.07-0.32 per cent; and reduced hospitalisations by 0.02-0.09 per cent.

"For a state that has a population of 10 million, the difference in the baseline clinic case would be about 100,000 cases, with about 6,000 hospitalizations averted," Swann said.

In other words, dedicated clinics certainly don't make things worse, and can make things at least a little better.

"And these are benefits that come on top of any benefits we'd see from other, behavioural changes - such as wearing masks - which may be more difficult to implement," the authors wrote.