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The development of safe, effective and affordable medicines has played a major role in the control of disease and in the improvement of quality of life.
Some medicines in particular – antibiotics for instance – have saved many thousand of lives; however, two other factors have had, by far, the greatest positive impact on health. The first of these is the more widespread availability of clean, drinkable water, and the second is the discovery, production and general use of vaccines.
Each year, about this time, we are encouraged to consider having the flu vaccine. Even if you’ve never had the flu vaccine before, there is no doubt that this year you should take that advice very seriously. The danger now is, of course, the bird flu; and although the human flu vaccine won’t protect against bird flu completely, it will certainly minimise the risk of severe illness if our worst fears are realised and the bird flu and the human flu viruses become somehow mixed together.
In almost all cases so far the bird flu has only been transferred directly from birds to humans, although there have been a few cases of human-to-human transmission.
This time last year we were thinking about the outbreak of SARS, another infection thought to have come from people and poultry being in extremely close proximity.
SARS definitely hasn’t disappeared; there is always the risk that it will remerge. But with close attention to hygiene and with the maintenance of isolation and quarantine measures, the spread of SARS can be controlled. No such luck with an influenza triggered by a renegade virus such as one born out of the combination of bird and human flu. People would spread the disease to one another before they developed symptoms.
Of course bird flu is nothing new; and in Hong Kong in 1997 there were a few cases of human-to-human transmission. However, all people infected then had very mild symptoms and the virus spread no further. More worrying is that there is some evidence the so-called Spanish flu of 1918 also began in birds, this pandemic killed 20 million people worldwide.
The availability of a vaccine designed specifically to prevent the current bird flu is some months away; but the influenza vaccine available in Australia for the winter this year has a component to protect against a rivus very similar to the one now causing bird flu – a virus first isolated in the Chinese province of Fujian in 2002.
Every year the flu vaccine is formulated based on the most likely strains of the influenza virus predicted to be circulating during the winter months. A lot of planning and a fair amount of educated guesswork goes into the development and ultimately the production of the vaccine. Preliminary work begins in Australia in the spring for the upcoming winter – work based partly on the experience of the Northern Hemisphere infections in their winter just past.
Weather hasn’t been exactly winter-like in Australia recently, nevertheless, now is the time to shoot along to your doctor of pharmacist to see whether a flu shot is for you.
If you fall into one of the high-risk groups, the flu vaccine is almost a must. For example, if you suffer from a chronic medical condition likely to put your immune systems under extra stress you should get vaccinated. Heart disease, kidney disease, asthma, chronic bronchitis and diabetes are all such conditions. And regardless of your health status, if you’re over 65 you’re in the high-risk category. For you the flu shots are free; for everyone else the cost is still subsidised as a pharmaceutical benefit.
Some more good news too! Bird flu or human flu, if you get a dose of the flu you can get some relief of symptoms with one of the antiviral drugs Rotenza or Tamiflu. You can get more advice about these products and the flu vaccine from pharmacies around Australia providing the Pharmaceutical society’s Self Care health information. Call 1300 369 772 for the nearest location. |
