Hamming it up: Flu frenzy spreading faster than the virus itself
Despite the fact that swine flu has claimed far fewer victims than the common flu, governments all over the world are acting as if Armageddon is around the corner. The World Health Organisation is mostly to blame, referring to the virus as a “threat to humanity”. This has led to talk of martial law, mandatory vaccinations and forced quarantines in many countries.
The daftest response yet came from the government of Egypt last May when it ordered the culling of the country’s 400,000 pigs, despite the fact that the disease, name notwithstanding, is mainly transmitted human-to-human.
Not far behind Egypt is protectionist Russia, which used the flu panic to ban pork imports from Canada and Spain. Likewise, United States immigration control freaks, who see in the ‘Mexican flu’ a fresh reason to argue for a Berlin Wall structure along the border between the two countries.
In Britain, a frenzy of fear and anxiety is being fuelled by people inundating hospitals and doctors’ surgeries. Most of them have the common cold, but are immediately treated as “suspected swine flu cases” by the media and the panic spreads faster than the actual virus.
Here in Ireland, we don’t panic quite so easily, yet you would have to question why the HSE is considering postponing routine operations to cater for patients with swine flu. A series of expensive TV advertisements are also being taken out this month to advise people what to do if they feel fluish and unwell. Yet, to date, in Ireland, only 19 people have been hospitalised for swine flu out of the 1,500 diagnosed by GPs nationwide.
This appears to follow the pattern elsewhere, which shows that this particular flu is mostly mild in its effects. Nevertheless, as part of the HSE vaccination plans, to be finalised next month, some hospital services will have to be cut or delayed while midwives and nurses are asked to retrain to cover GP-based vaccination units.
When the first cases emerged here last May, the Department of Health’s chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan said: “Our plans envisage the capacity to deliver the vaccine to the whole population, if required.” Now it looks like there has been a rethink, particularly in view of fears that a vaccination being developed for the H1N1 virus may prove more troublesome than the disease itself.
An editorial in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet says there are fears of a repeat of the 1976 H1N1 outbreak in the US, where mass vaccination was associated with complications and led to the withdrawal of the vaccine. The Lancet warns that the risks associated with fast-tracking approval of a vaccine could outweigh the benefits. Dr Holohan now says the Department of Health will not be recommending people have the vaccine unless the balance of risk and benefit is in favour of someone getting it.
Yet the sense of panic prevails. For example, Dr Brian Marsh of the Intensive Care Society of Ireland (ICSI) told the online health journal, irishhealth.com, that figures from Britain suggest that up to 20% of hospital admissions with swine flu would require critical care facilities.
“The whole critical care system in Irish hospitals is under-resourced as it is,” he said. “There are not enough beds, so a surge in swine flu admissions is likely to prove very challenging.” This is the same organisation that also warned the HSE back in 2006 at the time of the avian flu scare, that depending on the virulence of a pandemic, up to 100% extra temporary intensive care unit beds may be needed. They weren’t.
These are the governments, health authorities and medical experts whose terrifying forecasts you last heard during the avian flu panic of 2005 (deaths to date: 257) and the SARS panic of 2002-2003 (774 deaths). By contrast, ordinary, common or garden flu kills around one million people a year.
You might also recall the “mad cow” panic that gripped the world in the 1990s. In his 1997 book Deadly Feasts, Richard Rhodes warned that the human variant of mad cow, known as vCJD, might kill as many as 500,000 people a year in Britain alone. So far, total confirmed cases worldwide run to about 150.
Today’s touchstone for panic is the 1918-20 Spanish Flu. The Spanish Flu killed anywhere between 20 and 50 million people, at a time when the world’s population numbered around 1.9 billion. Adjusting for population growth, a modern-day outbreak could claim as many as 360 million lives.
Yet, even then, there was no mass hysteria. An article in the Times of London notes that in 1919 the recommended precautions against Spanish Flu included mustard baths, Bovril, and salt water for gargling. Also, “the good effects of wine continue to be emphasised, and most agree in selecting port as the best of these.
