No room for swine flu complacency, warns health chief (From Daily Echo)
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No room for swine flu complacency, warns health chief
11:15am Friday 12th June 2009 in Health
Delegates at a major incident conference
SOUTHAMPTON’S head of health protection has warned residents not to be complacent about the risk of swine flu.
The message came on the day the World Health Organisation declared the outbreak a pandemic.
It is the first time a flu pandemic has been declared for 40 years. Another 25 cases of swine flu were confirmed in England yesterday, taking the UK total to 822.
In announcing the pandemic, Steve Barnett, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said: “The confirmation of a level six global pandemic reinforces the need for the NHS to ensure all the flu plans already in place at local level are as comprehensive as possible and thoroughly tested.
Southampton's health experts on Swine Flu
“We need to avoid complacency in dealing with a virus that is an unknown and seems to be spreading quickly.”
Southampton’s consultant in public health Dr Graham Watkinson said the move was in response to the global spread of the outbreak. However, he said he predicted that the city would see more cases confirmed over the coming months, particularly towards winter.
He said: “It is only a matter of time before we have small outbreaks in Southampton. There are still risks, we have a port with ships coming in and out and an airport so there is a high through put of people. We will be expecting further cases. It is really important that people in Southampton continue to do things like wash their hands after going into town, make sure their children do and remember to bin tissues after use.”
So far only one case has been reported in Hampshire after a student in Southampton developed flu-like symptoms after visiting the United States.
According to Dr Watkinson, the case was managed well by the health service and the patient had fully recovered after being given five days of anti viral drugs.
Dr Watkinson was speaking as a conference was held at St Mary’s stadium in Southampton for health professionals to discuss how major incidents and pandemics would be handled. Emergency services including the fire service attended and demonstrated how they would deal with an incident that involved using decontamination chambers.
Comments(7)
Emm_Roids
says...
12:13pm Fri 12 Jun 09
Bartonian wrote:Bartonian you feel sick about it? Do you have flu like symptoms? maybe you should get yourself checked out!
Oh shut up!!!!! It makes me sick hearing about it.
Unlimited* Service
says...
12:27pm Fri 12 Jun 09
They are joking right? These chambers are of no use in this type of situation - unless our elected representatives are placed in one and left there to keep the rest of us healthy.
Bartonian
says...
12:48pm Fri 12 Jun 09
Emm_Roids wrote:Ha Ha
Bartonian wrote: Oh shut up!!!!! It makes me sick hearing about it.Bartonian you feel sick about it? Do you have flu like symptoms? maybe you should get yourself checked out!
Huffybear
says...
2:22pm Fri 12 Jun 09
Bright Sparky
says...
8:33pm Fri 12 Jun 09
Huffybear wrote:Whilst so many people are being so complacent about this I will point out some facts.
Its only flu, its not the plague and how many people do we lose to flu naturally every year - you don't hear about that. Its borderline paranoia and its media fuelled, just like this recession
Seasonal flu kills appx 12,000 people in the UK each year, with up to 800,000 actually catching the virus. About 8 million UK residents are expected to catch swine flu during the Autumn. So if swine flu is 3 x as deadly as normal flu, and 10 x as many people will catch it, that equates to appx half a million deaths in the UK from swine flu. Remember where you heard it first.
now in the north
says...
8:12pm Sun 14 Jun 09
As people who have caught it say its like a heavy cold and are able to talk on the telephone just days after having symptoms diagnosed..and comparing that to when I had normal flu, and I thought I was going to die, infact at points, lost the ability to care if it killed me and which lasted for about 5 weeks before I could even get my own clothes on...I fail to see how this is comparible. Incidently, I got flu about 2 weeks after having the flu vaccine!!!!
Most people are dying in mexico, and less westernised places, were people have to "keep it up" in order to survive financially as they are not supported by Sick pay etc, and where they may have restricted diets (see codex 2009) then is it any wonder they are dying the most.
I find it a little unnearving that the numbers of deaths has now been removed from the WHO website, the very minute!!, and I mean the very minute that Pandemic was announced.
Apparently the first case was in april in EYGPT, not mexico despite the news saying a little old door to door sales woman was the first to get it! The news itself is saying its causing mild symptoms.
I hate to get on the conspiracy side of things here but Baxter got the contract for H5N1 vaccines and then accidently put live H5N1 in them and trollied them to 18 countries.
They funny enough, have also got the swine flu contract and even funnier, they have the contract to bulk supply in the case of a pandemic!
Although admitting their own mess worldwide with regards to 'accidents' they have not and are not being punished for a mistake that could have killed millions!
Anyone considering the vaccine should check out the ingredients first and decide if you want it in your body.
30 governments have asked for a proper ingredients list but so far they will not give them up. Its not hard to find the main ingredients they use as standard though. (cant vouch for site contents but the list of ingreds is there, albeit limited)http://www.v
accination.inoz.com/
ingredie.html
I feel that this is just a mass money drive to get money from people offering themselves up for vaccines that are unlikely to work.
Furthermore, I would expect another outbreak of flu wether that is due to the autumn outbreak or to the number of people offering themselves up for the jab, i dont know!
Bartonian says...
11:36am Fri 12 Jun 09