Australia best prepared to deal with swine flu says PM

The number of swine flu cases in the country has exceeded 1,000, the majority being reported in Victoria.

Mr Rudd believes that since the flu first hit Australia last month, the government had acted on the best possible advice health and logistics experts.

"But I'd say more broadly on the question of swine flu, bear this in mind, of all the countries in the world, this country has been best prepared in terms of the provision of anti-virals," Mr Rudd told reporters in Melbourne two days ago.

"We currently have some 10.3 million doses available ... and because of the early action our government has taken we've made sure we're properly provisioned."

Doctors claim the federal government has quickly responded, very appropriately to the threat of swine flu.

The Australian Medical Association president Dr Andrew Pesce has assured the public, that considering very little was known about the disease when it first emerged, the government had not overreacted to its potential threat.

"Until recently we didn't know ... that it wasn't going to be another Spanish flu that killed 17 million people over the First World War," he told reporters on the same day.

"So it would have been a brave government to just dismiss that possibility."

The swine flu outbreak had highlighted tensions between frontline clinicians and the federal government but these have now been resolved and swept under the rug.

"There have been times where (doctors) had various problems," he conceded.

"But I think once they'd been brought to the government's attention there'd been an appropriate response."

During such times, it takes a strong leader to give these words of comfort, and Australia definitely has one.