Naked Truth Blog » Infectious Disease

Tamiflu tunes

Dom — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 14:58:13 +0000

Until now songs about swine flu had focused on the effects of the illness itself. The balance has now been redressed by a song talking about the side-effects of the treatment. This is not a vaccine. One paper in the Lancet is titled “Possible harms of oseltamivir – a call for urgent action”. Due to unexpectedly good containment of swine flu, various government subsequently downgraded their orders of oseltamivir and the developed swine flu vaccine. It seems that six people must be treated for one of these people to reduce their change of becoming infected with swine flu, but more than of these people will have side effects. The swine flu vaccine was quite quickly developed, and can safely be given at the same time as the seasonal flu vaccine. Although it does seem to have produced more side-effects, which reports of some flul-like symptoms and pain in the arm.

The contribution of medical students to services in pandemic flu

Dom — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:17:48 +0000

The Department of Health has released a guide to how medical students can help in the event of pandemic flu. It’s predominantly relevant with final year medics. There’s probably scope for expansion to other potential disasters, although this guidance applies explicitly to this particular disaster.

Examples of clinical activity that may be appropriate for a final year medical student to undertake include

• Clerking of patients in emergency or ward settings

• Ordering investigations under supervision

• Getting the results of investigations

• Venepuncture

• IV cannulation

• 12-lead ecg

• urinary catherisation

• arterial blood gases

• setting up an IV infusion

• manual handling, after specific training

These skills listed are taken from Tomorrow’s Doctors where it is stated what practical skills FY1s must be able to perform. The document may also set a precedent in stating that medical students should be paid a wage for work done outside of studying. Medical students will not be forced into doing this work, and must opt in to do it. They will be provided with immunisations. Many clinical medical students have already immunised as a matter of Trust policy around the country. It is unclear whether final year medical students or retired doctors will be called first if there insufficient doctors. It would make sense for the Department of Health to have policy on this. It seems unlikely that swine flu will overwhelm the NHS this winter, but it’s good to be prepared for the future. The document can be found here.

Swine flu visualised

Dom — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:24:37 +0000

The visionary David McCandless at Information is Beautiful has taken some data and turned it into pictures. In this instance he has turned swine flu statistics into coloured-in maps and tables. Visualisation is the often the best way for people to understand things. Certainly claims that ‘the USA have had more deaths from swine flu than any other country’ can sound worrying until you think about them. I’d really like to see more information in this format, it’s a lot easier to remember bits of red and blue on maps than tables of text. If departments of health or the World Heath Organisation made information freely available in a standardised format it would be possible to develop application programming interfaces (APIs) to make maps automatically. Hans Rosling’s Gapminder.org developed software to turn global health statistics into graphs, which turned out to be so good it was bought by Google. As a consequence, lectures at schools of medicine and public health all around the world became more interesting. If someone could make software to make maps using this precedent that would be much appreciated by students and policy makers everywhere.

Swine flu skank

Dom — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:27:23 +0000

Don’t come round with your flu symptoms

I don’t wanna die, dude.

A firm riposte to those who lament the death of socially conscious contemporary music, Jstar & Pilot have released the ‘Swine flu skank‘. Musically, along the same UK funky lines as K.I.G.’s top 10 hit ‘Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes‘ the swine flu skank comes with its own dance demonstrating how one might “catch it, bin it, kill it”. This refrain is borrowed from the successful NHS poster campaign. Its message is clear, although whether viruses are alive in the first place to be killed is a matter for some debate. They probably aren’t, and being caught in a tissue will not disrupt its microscopic structure in any meaningful way. Nevertheless, it’s always nice to have popular music promoting healthy behaviour.

Spitting a few bars relating to the pandemic, Dr Clarke is genuinely medically qualified, unlike such wannabes as Dr Dre and Dr Octagon. Disappointingly, he is not the chap running the revision courses. On his H1N1 rap he gives useful basic advise such as advising washing hands. H1N1 freestyle is more dedicated to the epidemiology. As he highlights on his tracks, his main lyrical theses are from official advise from the flu site set up by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Log on to www.flu.gov, and together we can stop the H1N1.

International Health Journal

Dom — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 10:14:28 +0000

With increasing acceptance of International Health as a discipline, and with an article in the Lancet explaining the difference between International Health, Global Health, Public Health and other terms, it is understandable that a journal named International Health has been launched. This is a collaborative venture between the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and The Lancet Global Health Network. Volume 1 Issue 1 is for September 2009. The scope of the articles in the first issue is massive: all the way from reviews of all non-communicable disease to the Lancet editor Richard Horton calling for a rational politics of global health hoping that “the outcome will be the highest attainable standard of health for all if not the perfectibility of humankind”. The review of rickettsioses is more what I would think of when considering traditional tropical medicine before terms like “global health” were coined. There is also original research, including a cross-sectional study of maternity in low-income areas of Mumbai.

Swine flu the game

Dom — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:59:54 +0000

Hopefully allaying the panic somewhat, the Wellcome Trust in association with Channel 4 have commissioned a game regarding influenza. With medical schools sending a link to all medical students about to go on clinical placements telling them not to panic, this couldn’t really come at a better time. Instead of playing healthcare professionals or epidemiologists combatting the spread of the virus, you play as the virus itself. I suppose the aim is to point out how easily transmission can occur, and encourage members of the public to modify their behaviour in order to reduce the prevalence of the disease.

Link

Swine flu the game

Dom — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:13:59 +0000

Link

Swine Flu: Your questions answered

debs — Wed, 13 May 2009 13:11:30 +0000

John McConnell Editor of The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal answers questions on Swine Flu

More on swine flu

Dom — Tue, 05 May 2009 15:27:04 +0000

In 1976 the US government produced a terrifying video about swine flu, ostensibly to encourage people to become immunised, although the main upshot may have been scaring everyone who saw it. It can be found here.

Artist Yoriko Yoshida has designed a series of swine flu masks which would prevent transmission of the virus not just by physically blocking its passage, but also by making people stay away from the wearer.

Swine flu diagnosis

Dom — Tue, 05 May 2009 15:26:50 +0000

There is a novel diagnostic tool for swine flu online. Try it here. If you need a second opinion, try here.