Dammit, I want sympathy
Feb. 25th, 2003 02:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ventaI think I've got 'flu :(
Some of you might be familiar with my rant about 'flu.
Have you ever noticed that nobody ever takes a day off work because they've got a cold ? They always take a day off for 'flu. For ages now I've been trying to get the cold reinstated as something people take seriously - you can feel bloody awful with a cold; you don't need to claim 'flu to take time off. And regardless of what the Lemsip adverts say, you don't get better from 'flu in a day. People die of 'flu.
While I don't think my death is imminent, I think I'm justified in applying to have my cold upgraded. I'd list symptoms to demonstrate my claim, but fear it'd make very dull reading.
Some of you might be familiar with my rant about 'flu.
Have you ever noticed that nobody ever takes a day off work because they've got a cold ? They always take a day off for 'flu. For ages now I've been trying to get the cold reinstated as something people take seriously - you can feel bloody awful with a cold; you don't need to claim 'flu to take time off. And regardless of what the Lemsip adverts say, you don't get better from 'flu in a day. People die of 'flu.
While I don't think my death is imminent, I think I'm justified in applying to have my cold upgraded. I'd list symptoms to demonstrate my claim, but fear it'd make very dull reading.
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Re: Vaccines..
Date: 2003-02-25 04:51 am (UTC)I'm not actually sure. It isn't high because this year there have been private vaccinations available in cubicles in some of the big London stations and from the station located medical centres for about 20-30 and that included their man power and profit.
A couple of paragraphs from the governments public health site:
"The virus is constantly changing – genetic shift and drift - with new strains and variants constantly emerging. People develop immunity either as a result of becoming infected, or through vaccination. And as immunity is specific to individual strains of the virus, the emergence of a new strain will mean that people will contract the disease and a new vaccine will need to be developed. Each year one or two subtypes of influenza A may be in circulation and one type of influenza B.
Q Wouldn’t it be better to vaccinate everybody who wants it?
A. For the majority of people flu is not life-threatening, however unpleasant it may be. A bout of flu offers long term protection against the same and closely related strains of influenza. It is the ‘at risk’ groups who benefit most from vaccination.
Calculated numbers of vaccine doses are available to supply the high-risk groups – the vaccine should therefore be targeted at those most in need and for whom it will be most effective."
Now you see I don't agree with that reasoning, because the vaccine also protects you against the same and similar strains of Flu.
Not surprisingly there are cost analyses which support both full population vaccination and selective vaccination.
Unless they claimed to have one of the n strains of 'flu per year which aren't in the vaccine.
They could try but we really do know what all the strains are this year and where they are.
http://www.who.int/emc/diseases/flu/country.html
Re: Vaccines..
Date: 2003-02-26 03:20 am (UTC)That's only amalgamated statistical data by region, though. If I claimed to have caught a 'flu strain which was reported as only being present in, say, China, then I doubt that the WHO would stand up in court and call me a liar. Especially if I hang around airports a lot.
And, more to the point, what proportion of 'flu cases are never identified as belonging to a particular strain and therefore don't appear in the statistics?
Re: Vaccines..
Date: 2003-02-26 03:31 am (UTC)More importantly if there was blanket vaccination then the chances of the ariport hanger on getting the strain would be reduced in two ways:
1) There would be fewer carriers of other strains entering the UK because they would have been vaccinated against their local strains.
2) People like airport workers, health workers etc are often vaccinated against more diseases than the general population and are likely to have had the additional strain vaccinations.
Another point is that new 'flu strains tend to appear in the same parts of the world with occasional exceptions. The 'flu virus which caused havoc during the second world war originated in the US because of unusual conditions in army barracks.
I'm not sure what percentage of cases are never identified but the strains are likely to be caught overall because of the infectiousness of 'Flu, an new strain will, unless significantly reduced in infectiousness or increased in virulence, spread and be caught in a check.
Re: Vaccines..
Date: 2003-02-26 03:43 am (UTC)More importantly if there was blanket vaccination then the chances of the ariport hanger on getting the strain would be reduced in two ways:
1) There would be fewer carriers of other strains entering the UK
All very well, but global blanket vaccination against 'flu surely isn't feasible? Not only because of needing 6 billion 'flu jabs per year, but because in order to vaccinate against 'flu you have to have first globally vaccinated against everything that's higher on the list of important things to deal with - polio is on the resurge, then there's yellow fever and typhoid to worry about before we do anything else.
Re: Vaccines..
Date: 2003-02-26 03:49 am (UTC)Ideally there should be blanket vaccination in Hong Kong, China and a couple of other area's of the far east which is where the vast majority of strains originate from. There should also then be a mandatory vaccination certificate needed for entry into those countries (like the Yellow Fever scheme). This would cut down the world wide incidence of 'Flu by some large significant percentage. There would then only be the occasional oddity to deal with.
Oh and because lj user="chrestomany"> said this:
The Gibbon's flu is also not recorded by the BMJ, and The Gibbon doubts the other 4 people in the office who caught it (and gave it to The Gibbon, who incidentally may have passed it on to you) contacted relevant health authorities either.
I would also like to say that the strain variation of 'Flu happens on a fairly longterm basis so long as a couple of people in that oubreak overall have been tested the strain will have been registered.