Swine Flu. Are we in big trouble with this then?

[Meglet]

This sounds worse than the bird flu that thankfully never really happened.

news.bbc.co.uk/mobile/bbc_news/top_stories/801/80183/story8018356.shtml?

Sky news have a press conference on now about possible cases in new york. When do we start panic buying .

984 people have died in car crashes since this thread started - havn't seen any reports

Oh and they think out of the 154 people in mexico that have died of flu - only 7 had swine flu the rest was normal every day flu that often kills people but never normally gets reported cos normal flu is boring

I think someone else posted earlier about their employers giving their staff free tamiflu. My husband works for the same organisation. He didn't opt to buy extra supplies for the rest of the family, so I have requistioned his packet of tamiflu.
It's in my bedside drawer if anyone wants it.
Mind you, I wonder how much it would go for on ebay?!

I'm in San Diego. They closed one school here which had a confirmed case of swine flu but it's now been re-opened and the local news are being quite positive at last saying there are no new cases here. I'm an utter hypochondriac and I'm quite scared about this, but my kids are still going to school and everyone else seems to be carrying on as usual.

Not happy to see there are two suspected fatalities very near the US border, only about 30 miles from me

While I take your point about the road crashes, the difference is that while it probably/hopefully won't, fatalities from swine flu have the /potential/ to grow exponentially, while car crashes will continue to happen but at a fairly predictable, static rate.

Well.. yeah. It's a matter of balancing the pros and cons isn't it?

Taking any drug could potentially cause an allergic reaction and kill you. Having surgery could potentially kill you. Going for a walk could potentially kill you.

Let's say flu makes you prettier. You feel awful for a bit, there's a small percentage you'll die but you'll most likely be ok and come out prettier. That's like plastic surgery. And sure it's celebrated because some people feel it's made their lives much better. Some people have died after it's all gone horribly wrong. Weighing up the benefits against the risk.

Not really sure on your point?

if people were rational enough to weigh benefits and risks no-one would smoke.

I dont get it .. there are only 94 confirmed cases worldwide and only 7 deaths that have been confirmed as related to this virus

I know there will be more .. but even double that number world wide is hardly cause for panic.

I said it earlier in this thread and I will say it again - in the uk alone .. 17 children are stillborn or die shortly after the birth in the uk every day. Thats 54 deaths since this thread began

And as a few people have pointed out there are huge numbers dying on our roads every day

I think its really callous to dismiss these facts with a casual oh these will continue to happen so lets not think any more about them.. every death is someone's son or daughter

I dont get why things are only important when they are all over the paper.

I think that there is a lot to be said for frequent hand washing though and I don't think that parents/schools emphasise this enough.

Our childrens school had an outbreak of novo virus last year which was so severe that pupils and teachers were dropping like flies.

Even now, if a child at the school has sickness or diarrhoea, they have to remain off school for 48 hours after the symptoms stop and each case still has to be reported to the public health department.

The school were quite proactive in getting the children to wash their hands frequently throughout the day and I believe that they also sterilised door handles/water fountains etc each day and this had a really positive effct in terms of cases of illness.

I even sent my children in with alcoholic hand gel with strict instructions to douse themselves in it at every given opportunity

So anyway people, wash your hands and do your door knobs !

eh? How did I dismiss those deaths as unimportant? I just pointed out why people are worried about this. Because while unlikely, there is /potential/ for this to spread at a very rapid rate. Seems more dismissive to talk of 'only' seven deaths. Let's hope there aren't too many more.

(quietly chuffed that I managed to spell 'diarrhoea' correctly without having to google it )

Here's the thing, on measles threads, people are very forthright in the risks of measles, yet this apparently has a higher mortality rate and the potential for spread is unclear. But showing any sign of concern over this is being mocked or criticised. A school very near me was closed. There are several confirmed cases and two suspected fatalities nearby. Yes, all the other reasons for premature death are awful. Of course they are. But I'm a mum, of course I'm going to worry about something so close to home, that at the moment we just don't know exactly how it will turn out. Hopefully, it'll indeed turn out to be more hype than bite.

There really is no need to panick if you live in the UK. Swine flu is treatable with anti-viral medicines.

and there's a very high rate of murders and road deaths here. I worry about that too but I know that my probability of my family being affected by either will be the same tomorrow as today. The probability of getting swine flu is currently unlikely but has a /chance/ of very suddenly rising to a point where it's a very plausible and immediate danger. That's why it's different.

Am I the only person thinking that if you're going to get this thing then you want to get it now while there's easy access to the drugs and all the medical care you need, and you'd build up an immunity for the inevitable outbreak that we'll see during our "normal" flu season in the Autumn/Winter.

A bit of a worry about the two (?) schools in New York that are closed, also some of the posts on the BBC website from people claiming to be Mexican doctors are alarming.

'The US have started closing schools and all the Americans on the yahoo lists I'm on are pankicng and stockpiling. Sigh.'

No big surprise there. They're the world's biggest panickers and hypochrondriacs. Not to mention, it's a litigous culture. Don't close the school and little Johnny gets flu and the council can be sued.

But do they close the school every single year when flu season comes around, because let's talk stats: this flu is no more 'deadly' than any other strain out there?

Do they fuck.

This is ridiculous.

No one still knows if those who did die were malnourished, were living with their livestock, had another condition such as HIV or were already ill with something else, worked with substances or chemicals that compromise teh health or lungs, were substance abusers.

You're not wrong, Riven. Every infectious illness has the potential to go global quickly no matter where it starts, but how do you fix the situation? The USA sends millions in aid to Mexico but most of it goes to trying to maintain some semblance of order among massive drug wars and corruption. It's unjust that drug companies pour so much into Viagra while people die in Africa from HIV. It's unjust that we can scoff chocolate while people starve. Yes, we could all do a bit more, but our governments are struggling as it is. Fixing overseas issues is going to take huge huge resources and still seems insurmountable.

Despite the fact I'm secretly worried, my rational scientific side has to agree with Riven and Expat. At the moment only 26 deaths can be shown to have been caused by swine flu in Mexico - the rest are suspected but no-one knows if there were other complications.

We can sit and worry in the UK but I think we probably are one of the best prepared countries in the world. If nothing else, we have free access to healthcare so anyone who thinks they are sick can get advice and treatment straight away rather than continuing to go about their daily business while infecting others. If it's true that we have enough anti-viral drugs for half the population then that's a pretty good start as I'm sure I read somewhere that expected infection rates from a flu outbreak are 40-50%

Apparently Australia has now given their border people the power to "forcibly detain" anyone they suspect of carrying swine flu - good onya Aussies. Having lived there for a while I have to say I'd be feeling pretty relaxed there as well, one of the few countries that may just have a healthcare system as good, if not better, than ours.

A few people -- Rockdoctor, and Ivy, is it, have pointed out that the number of confirmed deaths from this vanishingly small.

I think it's significant that it's much harder to "boost" numbers of affected outside Mexico. Within Mexico the numbers can be vague and bumped up and no one can be really quite sure in these early days. Outside Mexico, with the world on alert, the monitoring is too tight.

I don't believe this has killed scores of people, I really don't. I do hate to repeat myself, but this happened a month after an agreement between Sanofi and Mexico to site a huge flu vaccine manufacturing facility in Mexico, with a view to developing large scale production in preparation for a pandemic. That's a damned odd coincidence. This whole thing is very damned odd indeed.

I was talking about this to my dad last night, and he is in the "we-are-more-likely-to-get-hit-by-a-meteorite" camp, where I have always thought the end of the world would be microbial in origin. I asked him if he would be so relaxed if they announced that a meteorite WAS hurtling towards earth, but don't worry, it might miss us after all, and that we were "prepared". This is the problem with this virus- it is new and potentially still mutating- NOONE can predict what it will do, and it has the potential to become far more virulent and spread at a rate of knots. OK, only 2 confirmed cases where I live, Lanarkhire, with 22 potential in-contacts, who are being tested. By the time they are confirmed, each of them could have been in contact with another 20-odd people. Etc etc. Of course they might NOT be infected, and transmission might NOT be acheived so easily, but there are a lot of mights in there. We like to believe we are in control of this thing, but in reality we have about as much control over it as we do over any other natural disaster.

Re. what boredwithmyoldname said - see here

The mortality rate in Mexico is currently about 5% I believe, which is usual for seasonal flu. Anxiety has arisen because some young people have died. However, there is little contextualisation in reports. We do not know what access to health care is like in Mexico, or what proportion of the dead are young adults. I read the story of one of the young men who died (aged 39): Despite visiting the doctor he received NO appropriate treatment at all and continued to travel the 40 mile bus ride to work while sick because he couldn't afford not to work. It seems likely that a large proportion of the discrepancy in mortality between Mexico and the US, Britain etc is related to relative levels of affluence and therefore access to good healthcare and pharmaceuticals. This is in itself linked to big pharma's stranglehold on the global health sector. Aid is not necessarily the answer. Allowing developing countries to manufacture generics from blueprints might be.
Of course this is scary for a lot of people - especially those who are more vulnerable. We are due a pandemic, and while it might not be as bad as previous ones we just don't know at this stage. We are better equipped to deal with it though. Just the relatively recent realisation that viruses are more often transmitted through touch is a big factor in our favour. I guess my point is that we are not powerless. Panicking and stockpiling is ridiculous, irresponsible and anti-social in my opinion, but so is shrugging shoulders and saying it's going to come so we might as well do nothing. Washing hands takes 15 seconds and if it helps those who are scared feel a bit less impotent and vulnerable, it's time worth spending in my opinion.

First death reported outside Mexico. A 23 month old child in the US.

www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN2938123420090429