Hamming it up: Flu frenzy spreading faster than the virus itself

FEELING flu-ish? Lie down, take a rest, drop two soluble aspirin in a hot Irish whiskey, and put your feet up. It may not cure you but you will certainly feel better – and it beats all this panic about what for most of us will be a case of the sniffles. Swine flu hysteria is spreading faster than the H1N1 virus itself.

Despite the fact that swine flu has claimed far fewer victims than the common flu, governments all over the world are acting as if Armageddon is around the corner. The World Health Organisation is mostly to blame, referring to the virus as a “threat to humanity”. This has led to talk of martial law, mandatory vaccinations and forced quarantines in many countries.

The daftest response yet came from the government of Egypt last May when it ordered the culling of the country’s 400,000 pigs, despite the fact that the disease, name notwithstanding, is mainly transmitted human-to-human.