When it comes to the pandemic, it might also be fatal.
It seems there are some old farts, judging by some of today’s papers, who had Asian flu in 1957 and believe they’re immune to the current outbreak. No, you dozy buggers, you’re not. This is an entirely new mutation, and no-one has any specific immunity to it. Many of us, who are getting on a bit, will have met the main component, human Type A, H1N1, before, but it also has fragments of the swine and avian flu variants, making it an unknown quantity.
However, I think the fact that this flu affects older people less severely than youngsters is because we are more likely to have encountered several mutations of Type A over the years, and so have some little immunity to that component of the current virus. That doesn’t mean we’re totally immune. And, incidentally, Asian flu in’57 was Type A, H2N2 – not the same variant as the current Type A, so banking on immunity, rather than taking sensible precautions, is just plain stupid.
As for precautions, I’d recommend anyone who is in an at-risk group, like me, to check out this post. I’d also suggest that anyone, also like me, who has COPD, lays in a stock of antibiotics. I always have a stock of Amoxyl and, should I get ordinary flu, I immediately take a course, and continue taking them until I’ve recovered. Obviously, they will have no effect on the flu virus, but will give me some protection from opportunist secondary bacterial infections. The won’t stop me catching them, but they will minimise their effect, and I’ve proven that several times with normal flu. Which, by the way, just to keep things in perspective is, so far at least, way more lethal than the pandemic flu, and kills around 10,000 people in the UK every winter.
