Swine flu control - HSE should take a bow

The World Health Organisation has lashed out at the irresponsibility of those who have been trying to depict the warnings of a swine flu pandemic as a false alarm designed to help the pharmaceutical industry. There is little doubt that industry did benefit financially from the sale of vaccines and anti-viral drugs, but ultimately society has been the main beneficiary.

Younger people who are not old enough to remember the influenza pandemics of the 1950s and 1960s probably do not appreciate the carnage that could have been caused by a swine flu pandemic, if it had been allowed to mutate into a more lethal form.

During the 20th century, there were a number of serious pandemics. They undoubtedly facilitated by the revolutionary changes in the speed of travel.