Waikato District Health Board's (DHB) computer system crippled by a virus, which has shut down every PC in the organisation, may not be up and running again until tomorrow afternoon.
Waikato Hospital's emergency department and theatre was operating as usual, but the shutdown had affected hospitals' radiology and lab testing services, and the DHB had asked all non-urgent patients to stay away.
The virus called Conficker has infected 3000 computers logged onto the DHB's network in Hamilton, Taumarunui, Te Kuiti, Tokoroa and Thames hospitals, as well other facilities in Te Awamutu and Morrinsville. Waikato hospital laboratory has only been able to function at 10 per cent capacity.
Doctors were limiting their requests to urgent ones and discharging patients waiting for tests in hospital if they were clinically stable and fit enough to be at home, until next week. Urgent radiology and laboratory testing was being carried out by private providers.
Computer technicians upgrading a clinical workstation suspected a virus about 2am this morning and IT specialists were called in about 4am.
"This virus is a particularly virulent one," DHB spokeswoman Mary Anne Gill said. "Everything was shut down immediately and an emergency management team was put in place by 7am."
The team hoped to have a solution in place for the `destructive" virus by tomorrow afternoon, she said.
"If the DHB hadn't spent thousands of dollars over the past three years upgrading its network we might have seen chaos." The DHB did not know how it became infected, but had ruled out sabotage.
The virus may have come into the network via an email attachment, through a staff member's USB drive or through an external vendor, Ms Gill said.
"We have also disconnected our network from all external connections."
About 90 IT were working to fixing the problem, with the aid of international experts.
Conficka is what is known as a "computer worm" which targets Microsoft Windows operating system. It uses flaws in Windows software to co-opt machines and link them to a virtual computer that can be commanded remotely by its authors.
It has millions of computers now under it control in more than 200 countries, according to the New York Times.
