The swine flu vaccine has landed, but the case numbers are up again. In the US, Barack Obama has declared a national emergency, and the vaccination queues are stretching round the block. Swine flu is a serious problem worldwide, but it is only a recent semantic twist that sees us name it as a pandemic. The World Health Organisation used to define a pandemic as a new virus that spread quickly, and for which there was no immunity, causing high mortality rates. In 2008, this was changed so that a new strain of a virus already in circulation could qualify as a pandemic. The minimum mortality rate that had to be reached before a pandemic could be declared was also scrapped.
This is important because it weighs heavily on the way governments respond to the problem. In general, I support vaccination. My concern about the swine flu vaccine isn’t that it could be harmful, but that it might not do a lot of good. Indeed, there’s plenty of evidence suggests that the best way to manage influenza is to keep infected people out of contact with non-infected people. This sounds simple in theory, but it is not easy in practice. Even when people feel decidedly flu-ish, they are remarkably reluctant to drop prior commitments; snuffling choristers will sing in a much-anticipated concert; friends will soldier into town for a Christmas lunch.
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Margaret McCartney
Clive Cookson
Andrew Jack