How do I know if it's swine flu, or just regular flu?

[LynetteScavo]

And does it matter?

DH is quite poorly and has taken to bed with all of the swine flu symptoms. I don't think it is swine flu as we've all been poorly (a few days off school/nursery/ work) and bounced back; DH just seems to be suffereing more than we did, and we are in one of the current SF hot spots.

March, probably

Seasonal flu vaccine as usual in autumn.

What's the plan with the vaccine though? Is it mainly for people in at risk groups or a broader coverage? I heard somewhere they were aiming to get 60m doses - which would pretty much cover the whole population?

The first vaccine doses will arrive in august, and there will be 60 million doses available by the end of the year, apparently.

My OH has been given a prescription for Tamiflu today. He's not high risk. We're in Wales. They won't know if it's swine flu until next week when they test the swabs they took. We got a house visit.

at our school there were 10 positives qand about 70 people ill, so i reckon your figure is s bit out- but you are rightabout the underreporting.

Well depends where you live. In high transmission areas like London and Birmingham, whilst people were still being swabbed, it was about a 50% positivity rate for people having clinical influenza-like illness.

Musukebba - March - lol! so not to hold our breath for it then.

Parmageddon. That does depend of course whether people will need one or two doses of it as to whether it will cover the population or not.

interesting article on vaccine

Yes BadKitten: as mentioned the nice article you linked to; it takes about a year to get all the doses through from seed to the point where it can be given to people, but this swine vaccine will probably have a few more trial aspects than normal to make the licence ;)

Also relevant is the established production in factories of seasonal flu vaccine. A decision was taken earlier this year to complete this, rather than switch to solely swine flu (correct decision IMO).

Musukebba - '76?

My OH doesn't have swine Flu after all, Doctor called and said it's just man flu!

BadKitten: yep, lessons have been learned and a lot has changed since then. Plus of course current one is an H1N1 swine (rather than '76 H1N1 avian re-introduction), and therefore mostly new. Lot more known about vaccines now and different ways of presenting antigens to the immune system..

So would you be happy having one of the first batch or would you be a bit cautious?

The 1976 thing is what's made me think I wouldn't want to be one of the first, but maybe that's not an issue now if what you say is right - reassuring.

Cool
I did read the side-effects then may have been rather over-reported because of the way the information was released and so doctors actively looked for those side effects. Not sure if thats true or the opinion of the author but I could imagine how that would happen.

x-posts with squeakywheel!
Personally, if it were grown & manufactured in a similar fashion to seasonal flu, then yes, I'd be happy to for all my family to have it. We have seasonal flu jabs each year and would have this one too.

So do I actually, so I suppose if this is made the same way then it wouldn't be any more of a risk - unless there's an extra risk due to it being done fast, or due to some feature of this particular virus - possible?