27/4/09

In recent years we have had SARS, Bird Flu and now Swine Flu. In every case, the media, keen to sell papers, advertising and ratings, have panicked the public unnecessarily.

This morning, I heard an authoritative radio interview with a world-class epidemiologist about the latest viral curse. It was calm, informative and helpful.

While its podcast is still available from Radio New Zealand, I urge you to listen to it. Its link:

http://podcast.radionz.co.nz/ntn/ntn-20090427-0909-Swine_flu_and_fears_of_a_pandemic-048.mp3

By contrast, CNN today had us all dead and buried. They also twisted the facts, were behind with other facts, and condemned the pig industry to bankruptcy.

For the record, you can't get swine flu from eating pork, a fact that all atheists, agnostics and Christians will be happy to hear, and which will prick the smugness of Jews, Moslems and Seventh Day Adventists.

I'm not going to bat it out point by point, just recommend that you listen to an expert.

During the whole Avian Flu episode, when I was recovering from severe chemotherapy, and my immunity was so low that I always washed my hands and face after visiting the supermarket, I kept informed by the seriously cool and authoritative World Health Organisation website.

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/statements/
2009/h1n1_20090425/en/index.html

The website places the current outbreak in Phase 3: "In Phase 3, an animal or human-animal influenza reassortant virus has caused sporadic cases or small clusters of disease in people, but has not resulted in human-to-human transmission sufficient to sustain community-level outbreaks. Limited human-to-human transmission may occur under some circumstances, for example, when there is close contact between an infected person and an unprotected caregiver. However, limited transmission under such restricted circumstances does not indicate that the virus has gained the level of transmissibility among humans necessary to cause a pandemic."

http://www.who.int/csr/disease/avian_influenza/phase/en/index.html