To keep this in some kind of perspective.....

As of Wednesday night, there were 99 confirmed cases of swine flu in Mexico, with eight patients dying of the disease possibly due to lack of early diagnosis and appropiate medication

There are another 159 deaths from pneumonia that may have been caused by the mutant H1N1 swine flu virus, Jose Cordova, the health secretary reported, and 1,300 people are hospitalized; a similar number had left after successfully responding to treatment.


"Influenza happens every few years and will continue to happen every few years.

Doubtless there will be deaths, but these will be a drop in the ocean of deaths due to preventable killer infectious diseases that, worldwide, occur daily as a result of poor nutrition, poor sanitation, contaminated water supplies, needless conflict and inadequately managed vaccination programmes

It is a strange paradox that the world is so concerned about a possible wave of a disease that, in the great majority of cases, will be mild and self-limiting and yet, despite repeated warnings from the World Health Organisation, does so little to combat tuberculosis, a chronic, debilitating and often fatal disease which has been declared a "global emergency" by the WHO.


A degree of focused attention rather than irresponsible scaremongering is required in the global struggle against infectious diseases."

John Grange and Alimuddin Zumla
University College London Medical School from a letter published in The Guardian