Swine Flu and Heart Disease Update November 9th 2009
If you’ve been following our research and updates on swine flu, and it’s relevance to those of our many thousands of readers with an interest in heart disease, our last update on swine flu and heart disease was posted on July 20th 2009. We’re issuing this latest update as we feel there are significant developments that now need to be reported.
Because Swine Flu or any other type of Influenza virus places extra strain on the body, we’ve been especially concerned to warn our readers that prevention really is better than attempting to deal with the illness, especially if you are unfortunate enough to also suffer from a heart complaint.
How to avoid getting Swine Flu
The UK government’s advice is ‘catch it – bin it – kill it’ – and refers to using a disposable tissue (catching the virus) when sneezing or coughing in public, then quickly disposing of the tissue (bin it) and hence killing the virus by preventing it from easily spreading.
Because the common cold and flu viruses are so resilient, the best defence is avoidance of coming into contact with the virus. The main attack method of the swine flu virus is by getting into the body via the nose, mouth or eyes. The best chance of avoiding this is by avoiding public places where you may be exposed to airborn particles containing the virus as a result of a sneeze or a cough from an affected individual. Secondly, because the virus can survive on hard surfaces such as door handles, it is essential that you wash your hands frequently with soap and water whenever you come into contact with these surfaces in public, or at home if another member of your family has been diagnosed.
Cases of swine flu are rocketing again this Autumn
During the intervening period through the summer months, the spread of the Swine Flu virus has been much reduced, as expected. But with the advent of late autumn, moving into winter in the northern hemisphere, and the reduction in average temperatures we are starting to see the predicted rise (or second wave) in the number of diagnosed cases of the virus.
During the last week of October, the number of confirmed swine flu cases in the United Kingdom has increased by over fifty percent in just one week, reaching nearly 80,000 !
Over half a million people have now contracted the swine flu virus in the UK since the start of the current flu pandemic in the early part of 2009, and there have been 137 deaths from the illness during this period. Although this figure is relatively small, representing just over 2 people dying per 10,000 confirmed cases, there must surely be many heart disease sufferers who may not have died after contracting the virus, but whose condition has suffered as a result of the additional strain placed on their heart disease condition by the swine flu illness. This may translate into unknown future premature deaths from heart attacks, heart failure and strokes, but is impossible to calculate.
More swine flu patients are now requiring intensive care
Another worrying statistic is that the percentage of swine flu victims requiring intensive care has risen substantially, according to the UK government’s chief medical officer – Sir Liam Donaldson. There are currently over 750 people hospitalised in the UK with swine flu, but 20% of these patients are in intensive care, and this is following the pattern established in Australia and the southern hemisphere during their winter.
So, although the level of infection is approaching the 100,000 new weekly cases maximum established in July 2009, the number of serious cases has far exceeded that level reached in July.
Swine Flu Vaccine is now available !
A new swine flu vaccine has been developed by drugs giant Glaxo SmithKline, and is now starting to become available at doctors surgeries in the UK. The initial batch is to be targetted at high risk patients, and the UK government plans to immunise all high risk patients by the middle of December.
We urge all our readers who have any problems with their heart health or immune system to contact their physician to enquire when they can obtain a vaccination against swine flu, as it is not clear whether there will be an automatic system of contacting vulnerable patients, including those with heart conditions.
