Swine flu - what do you need to know?
What do you want to know about swine flu?
The World Health Organisation has raised its pandemic threat level to four - two short of the highest. The Foreign Office has told people not to travel to Mexico unless it's essential - and considering a third of a million people travel there each year it could affect many travellers.
More than 150 people are now suspected to have died there from swine flu and there are milder cases confirmed in the US, Canada, Spain and here in the UK.
Here's the Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, on Breakfast:
================= UPDATE ================
Listen to the discussion in iPlayer
Jump to more content from this blog
About this blog
Subscribe to 5 live Breakfast
You can stay up to date with 5 live Breakfast via these feeds.
5 live Breakfast Feed(ATOM)
If you aren't sure what RSS is you'll find our beginner's guide to RSS useful.
Podcast
5LNPI: Greatest Sporting Achievement of the Decade
09:00 Fri, 1 Jan 10
You've been choosing between Sir Steve Redgrave, Lance Armstrong, Roger Federer and the England Rugby team. Russell Fuller finds out who you think deserves the title.
Download or subscribe to this programme's podcast
© MMX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~59~RS~)
Comments
Sign in or register to comment.
The sums do not appear to add up.
The BBC reported last night on the news that 1500 people in Mexico had gone down with the virus. Of these 159 had died. This in a population that totals 120 million.
Yet somehow we are expected to believe that people from the US, NZ, Canada, Spain, and the UK all came into contact with some of these 1500 people. That is very high odds.
Worse, this low level of infection in Mexico, that has a high death rate, turns into a highly infectious but not critical outside of Mexico, for the couple from that returned to Scotland managed to pass on the virus to 30% ( 7 out of 22 ) of the people they came into contact with.
The sums do not add up.
It seems to me there is a great deal more infection in Mexico that the Mexican Government is fessing up to. That would explain the strangely high death rate in Mexico, and the high infection rate here!
And inlight of the fact that the Mexican Government has a poor handle on the problem, shouldn't we be cutting the direct tramission route to the UK by cutting our air travel links?
[Personal details removed by Moderator]
Complain about this comment
Although such ‘pandemics’ encourage fear and anxiety amongst the general populations of all countries, even those as yet unaffected, it strikes me that, once again, we will be hearing a great deal about the virus itself rather than the individuals that have succumbed to it. There will be hours of speculation as to how the virus has mutated or altered in order that an explanation is found for the differing reactions of sufferers worldwide.
If the medical experts took a large step backwards and looked at the sufferers themselves, their social conditions, their levels of nutrition, their ‘happiness’ quota, I am positive that they would find here all the answers they require as to why the severity of the disease in some populations is, and will be, worse than in others.
Why is it that we still insist on reductionist thinking, which requires instruments and laboratories and ‘experts’ in order that it formulates theories, when a touch of holism and, dare I say it, common sense, affords us the luxury of understanding the whole situation and the accurate predictive skills as to who future sufferers may be and how best to help them should they contract the disease?
It is now, as it always has been, our individual ability to muster a strong, healthy, immune response to a threat that will determine whether or not we become terminally sick. Healthy people should respond healthily, by having symptoms and then getting better. This virus will survive without us. It is up to us to learn how best to survive the virus. The human population has survived in its current form for at least 35,000 years. And 99% of that has been done without even the sniff of a lab-coat!
Complain about this comment
Is this another case of Bird Flu hysteria all over again?
For goodness sake just keep things in perspective.
Complain about this comment
I am normally a cynic but in this case, I am slightly more worried than in other 'scares', this one seems a bit more real than the others. However what we don't know are wildly inaccurate reporting by over zealous hacks we need the facts and nothing else.
Complain about this comment
please read 'know are' in 3rd line as 'need is' -
( no edit facility on here)
Complain about this comment
How many millions live in Mexico? and a couple of hundred die. More people will have died in car crashes in that time.
The BBC having phone ins that say there is nothing to worry about, just heightens hysteria. Bird flu deja vu.
I'm going to start selling swine flu designer face masks and stop eating pork ... just to be safe.
Don't panic Mr Mannering ...
Complain about this comment
What a joke on your show Nicky..... "Im worried i cant go on holiday" blah! blah! blah!
There are people dying in Mexico and your callers are just worried about there pathetic holidays!
This Swine Fever seems extremly serious and if it gets out of hand could be detremental to the worlds population.
The WHO insists that the outbreak has “pandemic potential” and has been stockpiling supplies of Tamiflu, known generically as oseltamivir, a pill that can both treat flu and prevent infection, according to officials.
those that have a stake in the Tamiflu vaccine include top globalists and BIlderberg members like George Shultz, Lodewijk J.R. de Vink and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld Hmmm that seems strange that these kind of high profile people have a stake in this kind of company....
This U.S. based pharmaceutical company that just weeks ago was involved in a scandal involving vaccines tainted with deadly avian flu virus has been chosen to head up efforts to produce the vaccine for the Mexican swine flu that has seemingly migrated into the U.S. and Europe. That company is called Baxter.
Think About this.....
1st we have the American born "Credit Crunch" now we may be expecting a "Pandemic" that could seriously damage the worlds population.
Could this be the beginning of Gordon Brown's "New World Order. Think about it, it does make sence.
Leroy
Complain about this comment
Yesterday i said to my wife that i'd bet her a tenner that five live would be doing a phone in about this, and bobs your uncle true to form they've jumped on the hysteria boat on the way to hype island! l,m still stuck on the shore listening to people bleat on about missing their holiday to mexico, how many times do they have to be told that THEY will get a refund or another holiday but no they keep moaning! get a grip.
Complain about this comment
Victoria - you don't just get a bit of flu! You either have it or you don't, it's like being a bit pregnant. Anyone who has had a dose of the real flu and not just a heavy cold will know what a debilitating disease it is. You can barely move with it.
Complain about this comment
I'mm I hope this whole thing just blows over like the bird flu...
I came across this website:
www.swine-flu-info.com
which seems to have some good, non hysteria inducing information on swine flu!
Complain about this comment
This mornings programme seems to be being overtaken by the very hysteria that I dread. We need facts not opinions.
Complain about this comment
this 'flu' is attacking the coalition of the willing and killing mexicans .. and the govt say they have been planning for it for 5 years ..
Complain about this comment
Richard:
We need to know everything about this situation....
~Dennis Junior~
Complain about this comment
View these comments in RSS