HAMPSHIRE’S most senior GP has called on the public to show “common sense” and act responsibly as the first cases of swine flu were confirmed in England.
Dr Nigel Watson, who represents 3,000 GPs in Hampshire, Dorset, Wiltshire and the Isle of Wight, said local surgeries were receiving increasingly higher numbers of phone calls from residents fearing they’d caught the killer virus.
The chief executive of the Wessex Local Medical Committee said only those people showing flu-like symptoms and who had recently returned from one of the affected countries would be prescribed a course of the anti-viral Tamiflu.
Despite concerns in other parts of Britain that chemists did not have sufficient stocks, Dr Watson said it could be transported from a national stockpile to all parts of the country within 24 hours.
He also warned people not to turn to the Internet to buy the drug from rogue traders as there was a danger it could be fake.
Dr Watson, who works at the Arnewood Practice in New Milton, said: “What is more important than Tamiflu is that people also use common sense.
“If they have flu symptoms they should stay home, drink lots of fluid, take paracetamol if they are in pain and then contact their doctor to take it from there.’’ He said most practices in Hampshire would have produced plans to prepare for a future pandemic.
“This will be a test for us, but I’m sure that practices will find that having a flu plan and putting it into practice are two very different things,” he added.
The number of suspected cases across Britain rose to 76 yesterday, while three cases were confirmed in London, Birmingham and Torbay.
The Health Protection Agency said last night that there were still no confirmed cases of swine flu in Hampshire.
The anxious wait for test results for Kevin Dugdale, of Weston, Southampton, was continuing. The 44-year-old holidaymaker had tests at his GP surgery after suffering from severe flu for a week after a family holiday to the US.
Swine flu cases across the world
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