Swine flu - some thoughts

I have a concern follwing reports of swine flu. My lack of panic about the virus simply doesn’t tally with the over-the-top, apocalyptic, doomsday scare-mongerings of normally reliable news sources and tabloid rags.

Sure there is a genuine threat here - as acknowledged by the World Health Organisation – and people are dying. But let’s put this in context:

- At the time of writing only seven people are confirmed of having died of the virus – all in Mexico.

- Mexico lags well behind other OECD countries in health status and health care availability

- Sixty million people, half the Mexican population, live in poverty

- Those living in less than adequate hygiene are most at risk

- Swine flu can be successfully treated with the antiviral drugs Tamiflu and Relenza

It seems fair to assume that those living in poverty and the developing world are most at risk due to poor living conditions and, crucially, because they cannot afford basic mediation to treat the symptoms.

The UK has publically stated it has over 30 million courses of the anti-viral drugs, enough for half the population and, according to the government, enough to cover a pandemic situation.

Should we be worried? I say no, though we should be concerned. But I also think we should be more concerned about:

- the 5,367 people were murdered in Mexico last year

- 12 million children are dying worldwide of curable diseases

- 2.5 million children are dying each day in developing nations because they can’t get water

None of this gets reported each day because it does not pose a threat and it doesn’t sell newspapers.

People may die of swine flu, but more people are already dying because of poverty-driven crime or they can’t access/afford common medication readily available in the West.

Rest assured, once the looming pandemic is over, the majority in developed nations will still be around to read over-sensationalist reports about an inconceivable number of people who died in remote countries of a largely treatable virus.

And I wonder: if the money we each spend on news for just one day was spent on medication in poor nations, could we prevent the oncoming horror that news editors are already sharpening their pencils for?

S.