Swine Flu India – A Must Read
Its amazing how Indian Media can create hype of anything in India. I totally agree with Dr Purohit’s mail below. As clearly and bluntly mentioned by him we all Indians are victims of Indian Media bullshit. We can’t escape it though till the time our own government is not willing to do anything. There has been several instances where the impact of media could have saved us Indians from a lot of miserable events. But our Indian Media chooses to be the utter crap. Just for the sake of TRP they are showing anything and everything. I don’t know when will this stop. I wish I could do something about it.
My dear Presidents,
I agree with you that swine flu awareness is needed, but there is no need to be panicky and join the publicity propaganda carried out by media and others which acts as a vehicle to spread misconception than to spread scientific information.
These are few facts about swine flu when discussed with the leading epidemiologists.
- Swine flu, that is H1N1 flu is not new, first detected in 1987
- Infective stage of flue is 5 days, 1 day before and 4 days after onset of symptoms
- The best way to prevent it spreading is asking patient having symptoms of flu like fever cough and running nose to take rest at home for 4 days so he does not transmit it
- Masks are of limited value if any, in this disease, it can spread through droplets on your skin, through contact etc, and I have seen that the masks in Pune are worn as fashion statement, while walking on road today morning I saw people wearing masks coming out for a morning walk with their dogs!, many wearing masks around their necks, and so on, infact these masks shall act as the vehicles to carry the virus, instead, avoiding crowded places or cinema halls or malls where air conditioners are on, is advisable, because you get recirculated air, where the virus density multiplies
- Death after H1N1 flu is not common, infect infections like measles is taking toll of thousands more every year, and we are oblivious of the facts. Swine flu is being blown out of proportion by media trying to create hysteria among lay people.
- Fever accompanied by respiratory distress, should be immediately notified which is likely to be a complication of H1N1 flu
- The mortality is less than .01 percent of those affected, that means may be one in 10,000 affected is likely to suffer the life loss.
- If you remember, 2 years ago SARS was blown out of proportion, what happened? Humans develop immunity to the virus, the same is going to happen, we develop immunity in due course of time, the virus is in the air, you can not stop it, our body is already developing the immunity so nothing to panic.
We need to take care of children and elderly who have less immunity and do not let them go to crowded places that are all.
WE MUST START THIS CAMPAIGN OF NOT TO BE AFRAID OF THIS FLU AND LET YOUR DAILY WORK CONTINUE AS NORMAL, NO MASKS FOR ORDINARY CITIZENS, HEALTH CARE WORKERS OR SPECIFIC EXPOSED TO LOT OF CROWDED ENVIRONMENTS MAY BE BENEFITED, NOT PROVEN.
I am amazed to hear that people are selling masks of RS 20 each which are available to less than Rupee 1 in the market.
See who is getting benefited?Please spread the scientific info, do not join the band wagon and stick to science, that should be the order of the day.
Deepak Purohit
District governor
3131
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Tags: swine flu advisory, swine flu india, swine flu prevention, swine flu singapore, swine flu symptoms
There's 17 Comments So Far
August 13th, 2009 at 6:36 am
Glad to hear the reality!….Indian Media sucks no doubt… i will forward this info to my friends tooo …
August 13th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
Hi All,
I am completely aggree with Dr. Purohit. Regarding indian media point , but we can't take such formal approach on Swine Flu because,
1. Though the swine flu is not new it was detected in 1987 but it's new for india and thats why there are very few labs are available to test H1N1. e.g. To handle the whole maharashtra state except Mumbai there is only one lab. i.e. NIV (Pune) and that to can test only 300 samples a day,which is very poor condition as if we compare to population of mahashtra.
2. if swine flu was detected in 1987 then still there is vaccine is available in market why ?
3. Government don't have sufficient stock of kits required to tests H1N1 , also to treat H1N1 i.e. Tamflu and Relenza.
August 18th, 2009 at 3:24 am
complex post. due one detail where I bicker with it. I am emailing you in detail.
October 18th, 2009 at 10:52 pm
Some of the above comments are wrong (by Shrikant), created by media hype
3. Govt. doesnot have enough treatment medicine, ie, Tamiflu. In Kolkata, my father is the head of the hospital which was treating Swine flu, and my father was handling the procedures. Tamiflu was more than abundant as this disease is not an epidemic. In fact govt was not providing Tamiflu to drug shops to prevent undesired commercial exploitaion and to encourage people to come to the govt. treatment centre.
2. Swine flu is just a kind of flu, even less dangerous than many other flu. Flu viruses dont have vaccine as such. Also flu virus tends to modify its genetic structure or I should say protein structure every time. Who is the person in the world who have not ever had common headache, cough, cold or sneeze ? That is also influenza, but in that case people dont panic. That is reason for many deaths also, old and children.
3. Many labs ar required only if the disease is epidemic. It was far less slow spreading than common fever. You need to have facility according to the number of population having a chance of being affected. It is not that whole population of entire state will suffer from flu in 1 week. Also people already getting treatement, will leave the bed (if admitted) in 7 days, otherwise stay at home, creating space for new patients. This means swine flu recovery period is very less, lesser than many other diseases like pox. Also it doesnot require special facilities such as operation theatre or life support system.
Final verdict …. get yourself checked as soon as disease symptoms are there
stay at home to restrict the spread of the virus.
November 13th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Nice explanation… but I feel sad so many people died still we don't have medicines yet…
December 6th, 2009 at 11:00 pm
Wonder how we'll reflect on this years from now.
December 7th, 2009 at 12:55 am
I don't understand all the hype around the swine flu. I also agree to the opinion that there are other flus wihich are more dangerous. Swine flu is not the most dangerous. So don't worry.
December 15th, 2009 at 2:00 am
Good read on that email. The fact that it was discovered in 1987 is crazy. I am not one for government conspiracy theories but it knod of begs the question…
December 30th, 2009 at 11:58 am
I also heard about it that it was discovered 1987. They said there exists also a combination of H5N1 and H1N1. I hope this won't get up in 2010
January 30th, 2010 at 4:45 pm
The issue of Swain flu in India was a terrific issue. Many people died in the attack of H1N1 virus. This is just a deadly virus.
March 6th, 2010 at 5:44 pm
Very innovative! thanks for sharing the tips which will prove to be very helpful in future as well…
March 11th, 2010 at 1:59 pm
Pretty nice work.. Is it ok if I link back to this blog from my site? Pls let me know..
March 25th, 2010 at 1:04 am
Quote:
"If you remember, 2 years ago SARS was blown out of proportion, what happened? Humans develop immunity to the virus, the same is going to happen, we develop immunity in due course of time, the virus is in the air, you can not stop it, our body is already developing the immunity so nothing to panic."
Illnesses perpetuated by the media in efforts to drive pharmaceutical stocks.
March 26th, 2010 at 3:59 pm
Yes, you are absolutely right. I totally agree with you. I can see the Swine Flu scare fading off.
April 16th, 2010 at 4:20 pm
I think this is absolute rubbish. More people die in India of Tuberculosis every year than even AIDS. However its AIDS and SwineFlu that get all the media coverage and blog posts. When will people realize that it is so only because we get funding from other countries to promote these campaigns?? I think we would be much better off fixing TB and other related problems.
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