If you’re pregnant lock yourself in the house, shut the curtains and wear a facemask if you so much as put your nose outside the door… has advice to pregnant women finally gone too far? Or, given that at least six healthy women in their second and third trimesters of pregnancy are reported to be in […]
Tag: Swine flu
Tom Nolan: Critical care and the pandemic panic
A pandemic of panic A “panic pandemic” is worsening the crisis in the UK said health ministers over the weekend. Andy Burnham, the health secretary, told The Observer of the need for people to keep a sense of perspective. “If people are made unnecessarily anxious, it makes the lives of NHS professionals, who are already […]
Tom Nolan: Prescribing antivirals – is beyond 48 hours too late?
After Monday’s statement to the House of Commons from Andy Burnham (you can watch all ten hours of the commons session here), the RCGP emailed members to summarise this and other developments. […]
Tom Nolan: Confusion over flu advice in pregnancy
Government deliver new advice for pregnant women A storm erupted over the weekend about the government’s advice to pregnant women on swine flu. It all started with the National Childbirth Trust issuing advice that suggested that women consider delaying conception, as their director Belinda Phipps explains: […]
Richard Smith: Don’t panic, regret, worry, or feel guilty
I’m fed up of being told not to panic over swine flu. If I want to panic then I’ll panic. I’ll run naked and screaming down the street imploring my neighbours to do the same. But then I realise that I don’t know what exactly you do when you panic. Do you turn to jelly, […]
Swine flu forecast
Yesterday was a busy day for swine flu in the UK. First we learnt that 65,000 people could die from it in the UK if the government’s worst case scenario predictions come true. That’s three times more than the excess deaths during the 1999/2000 winter flu season and double the number in the two previous […]
Mark Jadav: My experience of catching swine flu
After reading my colleagues’ comments on the discussion fora of the harmfulness of playing our ace too soon, I bear the shame of being one of those low-risk (fairly) fit, (relatively) young people with a mild self-limiting viral illness who is consuming the precious stocks of Tamiflu and probably helping develop the resistant strains which […]
Vaccines and virulence
Yesterday it was announced that Dr Michael Day, a GP from Bedfordshire, died from H1N1 influenza. A 6 year old girl has also died. Neither are believed to have had any serious underlying health problems The news of a GP’s death will surely send a shudder down the spine of many healthcare workers. Should this […]
How do you monitor swine flu?
Yesterday, reporters descended on Whitehall to hear about the methods of influenza monitoring. Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer led the numbers feast alongside Justin McCracken, chief executive of the Health Protection Agency, and Ian Dalton, the new flu czar. Sir Liam explained what data are being tracked: total number of cases, antiviral usage, […]
H1N1 – the science bit
Yesterday the number of deaths in the UK rose to seven. So far all of those who have died with H1N1 in the UK have had serious underlying health conditions and little information has been released about whether these people have died with H1N1 or because of it. Meanwhile the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has […]