Sponsored by
Swine flu: The truth
Officials tell us it's no more contagious than seasonal flu and, in the vast majority of cases, no more harmful. But how worried should we really be about swine flu? And how much worse could the situation become? Grant Woodward reports.
THE death of Chloe Buckley, a schoolgirl from London, is proving to be a turning point in the public's attitude towards the spread of swine flu.
It's thought the six-year-old, who died last week, is the first person in the UK without underlying health problems to be killed by the virus, although this is still to be confirmed by post mortem tests.
However, what is not open to debate is the fact that her death has seen a sea change in people's response to swine flu.
Staff at NHS Direct have fielded more than 52,000 calls in the last week compared to a total of 190,000 since April as people across the country become increasingly concerned about the H1N1 virus.
The numbers of people contacting their GP have also risen to around 40,000 a week, up 50 per cent on last week.
So are we right to be worried? Or are we panicking for no reason?
"I think people will worry about it," admitted Dr Simon Balmer who, as head of health protection for NHS Leeds, is tasked with the job of organising the city's response to the pandemic.
"But what I would say is that so far, certainly in this country, the deaths we've had have been among people with severe underlying health problems.
"If you look at the US and Mexico there have been deaths in groups without those underlying health problems, but I would say that's rare.
"The message we want to get across is that for the vast majority of people swine flu is a mild, self-limiting illness."
The first we heard about swine flu was in March this year when reports emerged of an outbreak of a flu-like illness in Mexico that had resulted in a number of subsequent deaths.
Experts now assume the virus emerged from pigs in Asia and was carried to North America by infected people.
Within a few days Mexico City was effectively shut down but by then it was too late, swine flu had already crossed the border into the United States.
From then on the battle was to contain the virus and slow its spread from country to country in order to give scientists more time to come up with a vaccine.
At the end of April, Scottish hospital worker Graeme Pacitti was confirmed as the first person to catch swine flu from within the UK.
He had contracted it in a pub from Iain and Dawn Askham, the couple who became the first confirmed British cases after returning from their honeymoon in Cancn, Mexico, with the virus.
By early last week the number of confirmed cases in the UK stood at just under 10,000 and it was decided that it was time to move from a containment phase to a treatment phase.
Among the 29 people who have so far died after contracting swine flu is 42-year-old Abdullah Patel a teacher at the Institute of Islamic Education, a private boarding school in Savile Town, Dewsbury. However, he suffered from serious health problems, as was the case with all but one of the other victims.
Asmaa Hussain, an eight-year-old from the Scout Hill area of Dewsbury, was initially thought to have died from the disease but her family say doctors have ruled it out.
Michael Day, who was said to be the first healthcare worker to die after contracting swine flu, was not killed by the virus but a blood clot on his lungs.
The discovery means that Chloe Buckley remains the only person without underlying health problems confirmed to have died in the UK after contracting H1N1.
Swine flu is like other influenza viruses in that it is passed on in droplets from inside a range of around three feet. As with other influenza viruses it is passed on in droplets and can be caught by standing near someone when they cough or sneeze.
People are therefore being advised to cover their mouths and noses when coughing or sneezing and to ensure they regularly wash their hands with warm, soapy water.
The virus can also survive on surfaces for 24 hours and can be caught by touching that surface and then your face. It is therefore advisable to clean door handles and other surfaces on a daily basis.
"There are a lot of things we don't yet understand about this virus, in some ways it's early days," said Dr Balmer. "But generally swine flu is similar to seasonal flu except in a couple of respects.
"Firstly, this outbreak is not in the season we normally get flu. Secondly, it's a completely new virus and seems to affect people who are younger than those normally affected by seasonal flu. At the moment, most of the cases seem to be people who are under 40 or 50 years of age.
"One of the possible explanations for that is that people over the age of 40 have had more experience of different flu viruses and maybe at some point in the past have experienced components of this one, whereas the younger generation haven't.
"We have got some information about how it spreads and which people are most vulnerable. However, we haven't experienced the virus in winter and we don't know if there will be resistance to such things as Tamiflu (the antiviral medication being used to treat it).
"At the moment the advice we are giving is based on what we know. As with any new virus we have to learn about it as we go along.
"It's possible that people will already have had it and not realised. It can range from a mild to a more severe illness and not everyone seeks medical advice."
Antiviral medications such as Tamiflu and Relenza are effective at reducing the severity and duration of the symptoms but are not a cure.
The Government has signed contracts with drug manufacturers GSK and Baxter to supply up to 132 million doses of swine flu vaccine.
Two doses are required for each person, with the first batch – enough to vaccinate roughly half the population - due to be ready by August or September. The remaining supplies won't be ready until the end of this year or early next.
"We have tried to slow down the spread of the virus and give us time to create a good vaccine," said Dr Balmer. "The aim will be to first vaccinate people at higher risk. That would be similar to the process for seasonal flu – people with chronic lung, heart, liver and neurological conditions, those with asthma or diabetes, pregnant women and those over 65."
Health officials in the city are now bracing themselves for the second wave of the virus, which is typically more severe.
"There is a hope that the hot weather will slow the spread but I don't think it will fizzle out. We don't know how big that second wave will be but we will certainly have more cases of flu this year than last year, with all the inherent problems that brings. The number of deaths from swine flu and seasonal flu will increase.
"We don't know exactly how many people in Leeds currently have swine flu because we're no longer swabbing every suspected case as we were during the containment phase. I suspect in Leeds we're now running into double figures of new cases every day."
One factor in our favour is that health officials are working to plans already formulated to cope with a more serious virus in the form of a bird flu pandemic, which were put together following a major new outbreak of the H5N1 strain in Viet-nam and Thailand in January 2004.
A pandemic is defined as a rapidly spreading epidemic that affects most countries around the world. Swine flu is now present in 140 countries.
Pandemics occur when a virus emerges that is so different from previously circulating strains that few, if any, people have immunity to it. This allows it to spread widely and rapidly. They happen about three times each century, at any time of the year, and affect between a quarter and half of the population and people of every age.
"Initally when our pandemic flu plans were devised the fear was that it would be an avian flu virus – H5N1 rather than H1N1 – which tends to be more serious," confirmed Dr Balmer.
"The fear is that the swine flu virus itself could change – its genetic content could mutate – and it will therefore have different properties as a more serious virus causing worse health problems.
"There is no evidence of mutation at the moment. It's still a mild, self-limiting illness. We don't know whether that will change at some stage. What I would say is that the numbers we have at the moment will probably rise.
"The Secretary of State, Andy Burnham, said that nationally there would be up to 100,000 new cases a day by mid-August. That's the equivalent of about 1,300 new cases a day in Leeds."
According to an official pandemic briefing produced by the Health Protection Agency, if around a quarter of the UK population catches swine flu there could be around 50,000 additional deaths occurring over one or more waves, each lasting around three months.
However, that figure is based on a fatality rate of just 0.37 per cent. If the fatality rate climbed as high as 2.5 per cent there could be as many as 323,000 deaths from a 25 per cent contagion rate.
The effect on health and social services would be severe, whilst businesses, schools, food production and other services would also be hit hard.
Transport and the supply of goods would be disrupted and there would be extra pressure on mortuary facilities, possibly exacerbated by delays in death registrations and funerals.
Official planning assumes that a quarter of the UK workforce would take five to eight days off over a three-month period. During the peak of the pandemic, estimates suggest absenteeism would double in the private sector and increase by two-thirds in the public sector.
The pandemic is likely to spread rapidly in schools and other 'closed communities'. Schools could be particularly affected by staff absenteeism and disruption to transport services.
It would also have an impact on all services including police, fire, the military, prisons, fuel supplies and food production and distribution.
The last major pandemic was the Spanish flu outbreak of 1918, which was also of the H1N1 strain and caused three waves of disease. The second of these, between September and December 1918, resulted in the heaviest loss of life.
Estimates are that it caused between 20 and 50 million deaths worldwide with a fatality rate of around three per cent.
"I would certainly hope we're not going to see anything on that scale with swine flu," said Dr Balmer. "Medical and social care has improved in leaps and bounds since then.
"There have been a lot of cases but there are no signs the virus has mutated. It's important to remember that so far, for most people, swine flu has been a normal illness."
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Leeds
Thursday 24 May 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 10 C to 23 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: North east
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 16 mph
Wind direction: East
