"There is nothing particularly nasty about swine flu, and good ‘hand hygiene’ is effective in controlling infections," a WHO consultant told DNA.
The number of deaths from H1N1 in India only reflects the number of undiagnosed infections, not an abnormally high mortality rate, says Dr Benjamin Cowling at the department of community medicine at the University of Hong Kong.
“There is nothing particularly nasty about swine flu, and good ‘hand hygiene’ is effective in controlling infections,” the World Health Organisation (WHO) consultant told DNA.
On H1N1 mortality rate in India:
I suspect it’s not very high; it just means there have been a lot of infections that went undetected. For every person who died, there are perhaps 10,000 infected people who didn’t die. In May, India was reporting cases of infections among overseas travellers. But there’s since been a silent spread of the epidemic in the community, and the deaths are showing up the large number of infections. There’s nothing particularly nasty about H1N1. When the first reports came out of Mexico, we thought the mortality rate was around 0.6 per cent. But subsequent research showed it was more like 0.05 per cent, or about 10 times lower.
Hong Kong reports about 200 confirmed H1N1 infections daily, but it’s not the full picture, merely a fraction of the total cases. We think it’s closer to 1,000 or so.
Cause of death:
The flu is sometimes associated with death caused by other conditions, but it’s not clear how strong the link is. But we know there are certain high risk groups of people: those with diabetes, asthma, people with suppressed immunity for various reasons like cancer.
On checking the spread of infection:
We’ve published a study showing that ‘hand hygiene’ - just routinely washing hands - is very effective. School closures help, because (a) children are more vulnerable, and (b) they are also more infectious because they mix with each other more closely. Children are one of the core transmission groups.
Stay clean
Just routinely washing hands is very effective. School closure helps because (a) children are more vulnerable, and (b) they are also more infectious because they mix with each other more closely. Children are one of the core transmission groups.
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