Swine flu and other infections...

There are some things that will always amaze me, and one of these is the way in which people will react to a perceived threat as opposed to how they blithely live with actual ones. There was an article many years ago in New Scientist that discussed how people will not see that crossing a street has a greater risk factor than jumping out of an airplane with a parachute on, and other similar examples.

Since reading that article I have seen numerous examples of this in action, most notably in the field of medical risks. Forgive me, but I'm going to use some dance steps to illustrate just how ridiculous these were and are. To name just a few, there have been the 'Mad-cow disease panic boogie', the 'We're all gonna die of avian flu waltz', the 'Terrorists are going to post letters with anthrax in two-step' and now the 'Mexican flu is gonna kill us mambo'.

Let's put the latest and the previous flu virus outbreak into some perspective. Nearly 2.5 million (that's 2500000) people have died of TB in 2008. That's according to the World Health Organization's report. Over 5 million have died from malaria. OK, so malaria is not transmitted through contact with the infected person, but TB spreads in exactly the same way as flu does - an infected person coughs, sneezes or even just breathes in an enclosed space where others are and they can get infected. Compare that with the fact that in 2008 only 9 people died of avian flu. And that so far, worldwide, we have had just a little over 600 deaths and only about 120000 confirmed cases of the new dread disease, swine flu. Hell, more people die of the ordinary old garden variety of flu just in the USA (estimated between 30 and 40 thousand people).

Do I think that people should now drop all precautions against swine flu? Should we all just ignore it and return to normal? Not at all - washing your hands, practicing good hygiene, staying home when you are feeling unwell or getting treatment right away are good things to do. And that goes for TB infections as well.

All I'm saying is that we should drop the unreasoning panic about this new 'threat', as illustrated by the cancellation of the Choir Competition that was due to take place this week here in Korea. And that the SA Youth Choir, when they heard about this while en route, chose to spend a miserable 48 hours at Dubai airport rather than fly on to Korea and spend their time until they could get flights back to SA in a comfortable hostel, because 'they are not setting foot in a country where there is swine flu.'