Hello Julian and GP-UK,
On Tuesday, April 28, 2009, at 2:39:16 AM, Julian wrote:
> At 23:46 27/04/2009, you wrote:
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>>Remember all the fuss about bird flu?? Any e-mails through today? I am in
>>tomorrow so will find out. Is the time of year likely to make it less of a
>>problem (if anything happens anyway?)
>>
>>Best wishes
>>
>>Paul Bromley
> I believe our PCT has indeed been in contact with all practices
> (locally by fax).
> Patients with relevant symptoms should not attend surgery at
> present. If they do attend, perhaps inadvertently, masks may be of
> some value (or may not) but gowns were only recommended for
> procedures such as nebulization if I remember correctly.
> Trying to get information that has not been politically filtered is
> proving more difficult than I expected, so perhaps the planners'
> hopes of information control will come to fruition.
> http://www.anamariasalazar.com/ is far from ideal, but the report is
> from Mexico, and of course for those of us who don't speak Spanish it
> has the advantage of being in English.
> WHO has raised the Pandemic Alert level to 4 as of yesterday evening,
> COBRA had a session earlier today, and the FCO has finally changed
> its travel advice to suggest that travel to affected parts of Mexico
> should be limited to essential travel only.
> Source
> http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/travelling-and-living-overseas/travel-advice-by-country/north-central-america/mexico
> Sources I found useful yesterday included:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swine_flu
> http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/
> A lot of useful links on this US website.
> Clinicians (US)
> Clinicians should consider the possibility of swine influenza virus
> infections in patients presenting with febrile respiratory illness who
> Live in an area where human cases of swine influenza A (H1N1) has
> been identified or
> Have traveled to an area where human cases of swine influenza A
> (H1N1) has been identified or
> Have been in contact with ill persons from these areas in the 7 days
> prior to their illness onset.
> If swine flu is suspected, clinicians should obtain a respiratory
> swab for swine influenza testing and place it in a refrigerator (not
> a freezer). Once collected, the clinician should contact their state
> or local health department to facilitate transport and timely
> diagnosis at a state public health laboratory.
> http://www.who.int/csr/don/2009_04_24/en/index.html
> The Swine Influenza A/H1N1 viruses characterized in this outbreak
> have not been previously detected in pigs or humans. The viruses so
> far characterized have been sensitive to oseltamivir, but resistant
> to both amantadine and rimantadine.
> http://www.pighealth.com/influenza.htm
> Scroll down to text info of some interest.
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/27/global-alert-swine-flu-who
> Also note (not from above article) that many US airlines ARE allowing
> passengers to change travel plans to avoid Mexico with no
> charges. BA was not 26/4/09.
Remembering your interest from earlier 'bird flu times' ('times' still
ongoing I believe, albeit with considerably less frequency or import)
may I offer the following additional resource:
http://www.healthmap.org/swineflu
Being a bit of a 'web 2' Luddite ('web 2' nearly as naff a term as
'webmaster' IMHO) I nevertheless succumbed to Twitter as a medium for
receiving Healthmap swineflu updates. I also installed TweetDeck as a
front-end (I guess the Twitter equivalent of an RSS aggregator). It's
still in beta with a few shortcomings but by and large does the job.
http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/
Regards to All,
Chris
--
Chris Salter mailto:[log in to unmask]
Lincolnshire Post-Polio Network http://www.lincolnshirepostpolio.org.uk/
Polio and Post-Polio News http://mt.lincolnshirepostpolio.org.uk/pandppnews/
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