All Nature’s pandemic flu coverage is collected on our news special page. These regular updates on The Great Beyond round up the latest from other news sources around the globe.
The UK has got itself in a right tizzy over swine flu this morning. Andy Burnham, the country’s health secretary, has been forced onto the defensive after a rash of stories accusing the government of giving conflicting advice to pregnant women.
“There isn’t conflicting advice. The advice has been clear all along that women who are pregnant should take extra precautions as they would anyway – they should really follow the advice about hand hygiene, they should consider avoiding crowded places,” he says (GMTV, via the Guardian).
He told the BBC’s Today programme that the government couldn’t tell people how to live their lives. “Everyone has to make their own judgements. People have to live their lives,” he said.
Meanwhile, Ernst & Young warned that the UK economy could be brutalised by H1N1 as a result of people staying away from work.
“Perhaps the most worrying aspect of an H1N1 epidemic is that it would reinforce the downward effect of the recession on inflation,” says a report from the company’s Item Club experts (Sky News). “With the western world still teetering on the brink of deflation it is not an exaggeration to say that a pandemic on this scale could tip it over the edge.”
In addition, two major airlines are about to start turning people away if airline staff suspect they may have swine flu. British Airways and Virgin Atlantic have announced that they will require doctors notes from people who appear to be ill.
Peter Holden, the British Medical Association’s lead representative on pandemic flu, told The Times this was “a total and utter waste of time”.
He says:
A fit-note is only going to be valid at the moment of issue. You could easily become ill between leaving the GP’s surgery and reaching the airport. It flies in the face of government efforts to relieve pressure on doctors, and we have much more important work to do than this.
Image: CDC