Vaccination plans for the UK are slowly beginning to emerge. On Thursday Sir Liam Donaldson confirmed that 60 million vaccines are scheduled to be produced by the end of the year with the first batches ready for administration within the next month. The two different vaccines (one made by Baxter, the other by GSK) each […]
Tag: Swine flu
Ulrike Schmidt on swine flu fear and loathing in Mexico…and London
My flight to Cancun, Mexico, to attend the Conference of the Academy for Eating Disorders (AED) was scheduled for Sunday, 26th of April. The day before there were several anxious emails about the swine flu outbreak in Mexico City, but a reassuring response from the AED president followed: of course the conference would go ahead.The […]
Keith J Petrie and Kate Faasse: Monitoring public anxiety about flu
Greater monitoring of the web could provide a guide to public anxiety about flu outbreaks and social media could be used more intensively to provide relevant public health information to younger groups. […]
Domhnall MacAuley on public health in Hong Kong
When your fellow passengers wear surgical masks, you complete a health declaration with your landing card and, pass through a line of heat detectors before passport control, you know public health is taken seriously. Travelling to the WONCA 2009 (World Organization of National Colleges, Academies) Asia Pacific conference in Hong Kong was always going to be […]
Mairi Scott and Tom Love on pandemic flu training for retired health care professionals
Pressures on the workforce are going to be one of the big challenges for the NHS in a pandemic. One strategy which might help with this problem is to draw upon retired health professionals, who could fulfil a number of possible roles. This approach has been suggested in a number of pandemic influenza plans which we reviewed […]
Joe Collier on manoeuvres for avoiding Mexican flu
Mexican (swine) flu is clearly a threat. It is difficult to know exactly how best to avoid being infected, and although the risks for a Londoner are remote here are some changes I now make in my day-to-day life in an attempt to stave contagion off. […]
Juliet Walker: BMJ in the news
The swine flu pandemic has dominated the news in the last few days. In a BMJ editorial, Richard Coker argues that, “as the virus is present in several countries, trying to contain it is probably not feasible any more. Efforts should now focus mainly on mitigation… Poorer countries are most vulnerable because they have underdeveloped […]
B M Hegde on flu
I was working in Ipswich in a cardiothoracic centre during the 1968-69 ‘Flu epidemic. During the Xmas week end of 1968 I had to be on call from Friday through Monday morning as most of my colleagues were on leave. I had to certify more than 50 deaths, mostly in the geriatric age group. Elderly […]
Adrian Gonzalez on swine flu in Mexico
In 2003 I was at the BMJ’s offices in Tavistock Square, London, when China’s SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) epidemic was at its peak. At that time the risk of infection seemed far away. Today is different; I’m living and working in Tlalpan, the district of Mexico City that holds the largest concentration of hospitals […]