Swine Flu

rov1200 | 18:16 Mon 04th May 2009 | News

17 Answers

Is enough being done in the UK to stop the epidemic spreading and putting the population under risk? Returnees from Mexico are bringing the disease in and now passing it onto the general population. Another 9 cases were established in London today. Professor Anderson, who was involved in the Foot and Mouth outbreak in 2001, thinks there will be a major pandemic in the UK spreading nationwide. Japan monitors all incoming visitors whereas just a simple question is put to UK ones. Is it now too late to put people into quarantine or should we let it take its course? There has been scores of deaths in Mexico, mostly the young, are we likely to follow the same pattern?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8032697.stm

Nepal

Flu masks.

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HillyHugger

I think a little perspective is called for . I heard today 1000 people world wide are infected , 8000 people die in an average year from flu in the UK .

Strauss

.... and 4000 children die every day because they have no access to clean water.

rov1200

Question Author

As stated above Professor Anderson was at the forefront of the foot and mouth virus in 2001 and has extensive knowledge of the mathematics of how viruses behave. He predicted then that virus would sweep the country well before it took hold. We now know how that ended up costing the country �8 bn and chaos in the farming community. Maybe we ignore his prediction this time at our peril?

paraffin

I saw a guy on the news today, his name is Professor Oxford, a virologist, who said basically that we should not as a nation panic.

So, who DO we believe? We need a consistent and unified "party line" instead of conflicting signals and messages from different academics being rolled out on all the news stations. Otherwise confusion will reign supreme.

stewey

Simple solution to most situations: don't tell the newspapers, TV, or radio anything. Just let the experts, supposedly, deal with it!

rov1200

Question Author

People may have short memories but if we go back to the 2001 Foot and Mouth outbreak the way we initially tackled it has similariites to the way we are fighting the current strain of swine flu. That is the epidemiologists discover an outbreak then treat the person affected and those close contacts with antivirals. There is a time lag between catching the virus and showing flu symptons so the disease in the meantime .progresses to a wider population. Therefore we are always playing catch-up!

China has used a different strategy where the sufferer and all close contacts were put into hibernation but received bad press reviews. But at least it shows if caught at an early stage with drastic action it will work.

Britain like Spain has taken no preventative action but if the disease ever gets to a pandemic it will ensure that most of the country will be taking Tamiflu, etc while other countries may escape it.

jno

people are now passing it back to pigs

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ar ticle6215137.ece

The thing is, pandemic just means worldwide, it doesn't mean deadly. It certainly is worldwide - New Zealand, which is far from Mexico, had a number of cases. That's what modern air travel does.

As it turned out, it's not very lethal, and doesn't pass easily from one human to another. But the next pandemic might. So authorities do need to have rapid response plans ready, and also be prepared for the fact that they may not be needed after all, however much they cost.

It all depends how much money you want to spend on countering risk. London Transport doesn't invest in snow-clearing equipment because it thinks London doesn't get enough snow to make it worthwhile. I think that's right, but people get upset because the one snowfall a year can stop the tube running. But would they want ticket prices to go up to defray the cost of anti-snow gear?

rov1200

Question Author

Yes, thats a worrying situation as if pigs can get it from humans what about all the other hoofed animals which are equally suseptable mostly the cattle population.

If you regard 20 deaths so far from one country insignificant multiply that up throughout the world.

Personally the only way that swine flu should be tackled, if not too late, is to quarantine any arrival from Mexico. This only needs a few days to clear them.

We do quarantine animals arriving here so that any virus contacted abroad is not brought here. Its the least we can do for our own population?

anotheoldgit

I totally agree with rov as I have said in previous postings on this matter.

You get the usual apathetic response from such as HillyHugger and Strauss

And of course the usual lack of action from the politicians, they will let anything into the country people as well as viruses. But then spend thousands on commercials telling us that we can't bring sausages etc into the country.

JimmyCooper

Load of old tosh like Bird flu which killed a few hundred.

There are 6.5 billion people in the world and how many have it??

More scaremongering

Plus exactly what is a facemask going to do??

The virus isnt airborne

SeaJayPea

So are we suggesting that anybody who's on holiday in Mexico can't come back AOG? How long would you leave them there?

sqad617

JC

"The virus isnt airborne "

Stupid me, thinking that it was spread by airborne droplets.

JimmyCooper

I should have worded it better

Yes its airborne if someone coughs or sneezes in your immediate vicintiy

Which of course happens a thousdand times a day