Despite the advice from quite a few 'notable' persons, I am scared of Swine Flu. Who is not?

Let us consider a typical advice from the Vice Chancellor of Bangalore University: "Ridiculing the declaration of holidays by schools in the city following the outbreak of H1N1 influenza, he said that the issue was being blown out of proportion. More people die of cancer or dengue, than swine flu. I am not asking people to ignore the outbreak. But give it the importance that is needed, and not more said the Vice-chancellor, who is also a noted cardiologist."

Unfortunately, the 'noted cardiologist' has forgotten (or he is not aware) that cancer is not infectious or contagious. However, the swine flu is contagious, and is a pandemic.

"When it comes to the swine flu, and all the other flus that will probably hit us in the coming seasons, I would say- you gotta live a little", says Suhasini Haider. I thought of deriving some courage from her and living a little, until I read the statement "We have vaccines for absolutely everything from small pox to the common cold". Where on earth do we have a vaccine for common cold?

After all my scare is not without basis. Many people feel that the Government is not doing enough to contain the pandemic. To boot, I do have many students in my classes, who travel to Bangalore, Chennai, and Coimbatore on weekends, the places affected by swine flu! To the best of my knowledge, the Government is not tracking them. Nor did I receive any guidelines from the Government asking me to send home the students with symptoms of swine flu. If so, why shouldn't I send the coughing-students home, by marking them present in the attendance register (unofficially)? If a student has the symptoms of flu and yet attend my classes, can I file a case of culpable homicide against him/her?

All of a sudden I started noticing if the persons with whom I interact have running nose or cough and so on. Prof. Lakshmanan, with whom I go for coffee twice daily, has cough and fever since a couple of days. But I couldn't say no to him when he called me for a cup of coffee, even when I knew that he had been to Coimbatore two weeks ago! I also noticed that the young lady at Nescafe coughed exactly when serving the coffee to me. Last week, I happened to meet a person who came from UAE, and he has a travel history of visiting places affected by swine flu.

And then this happened.....

Yesterday, I picked up sore throat, but I had no fever. And I know that swine flu symptoms need not include fever. Could this be swine flu? The mortality rate of swine flue is (only!) 1%. But WHO says the pandemic may affect 1 billion people in next two years, and 1% of 1 billion is sizable! What if I belong to that rare group (!), as I did have bronchitis once?

According to the advice from Health Minister, if I have the symptoms of swine flu I should stay home. Hey, wait. Shouldn't I care for my family members? If I stay home, wouldn't I infect my near and dear ones? Isn't it a better option so flee the home if I have symptoms of swine flu lest my family members are infected? Perhaps it is time to keep all my life insurance policies at a file, easily accessible by my wife, and decide at what point of time (symptoms) I should flee (if I decide so).

It appears, this blog has a long life. This post (which I started to type on 13th and finished on 14th night) is not destined to be the last post on this blog! I am alright today and my sore throat did not become a full-blown throat infection! Or I might have contracted the swine flu without any disease, as it can be cured without any medication (it is possible).

This nature of swine flu (that it can be cured without any medication) gives tremendous scope to some pseudo scientists who claim that they (or their method) can cure the swine flu (claim 1, claim 2). With respect to the second link, it appears that the claimant has a history of false claims! Perhaps he should cure himself of blepharospasm (watch the video carefully), before claiming the cure for any other disease!