'Hygiene the best medicine'

As the public becomes aware of the H1N1 virus (swine flu) around the world, it has drawn some measure of panicked responses from people who have travelled in the last few days and want to be tested. Dr Purnima Parthasarathy, Head of Infectious Diseases unit of Manipal Hospital, Bangalore, one of the hospitals identified to handle swine flu cases, speaks to Deccan Herald and clears some misconceptions and ways to prevent its spread.

How can people differentiate swine flu from the other common forms of flu?

Unfortunately there is no way to distinguish swine flu from other forms of influenza. The symptoms are the same for all kinds of flu. A person needs to be worried, if they have these symptoms with a history of travel or exposure to other people who have been detected with swine flu.

What are the precautions to take?

The virus is most infectious one day before the symptoms appear and a week after that for adults and slightly longer time for children. It is very important to avoid panic in case a person suffers from any symptoms of the flu. The best precaution would be to stay at home and avoid crowded environs. People should also follow good hand hygiene and wash their hands with soap and water or alcohol based sanitisers. Also follow respiratory etiquette like sneezing and coughing into a tissue and dispose of the tissues properly. In hospitals, surgical masks are essential.

What should swine flu suspects do?

If a person suspects that he/she has the flu, then they should immediately meet their local doctor or get in touch with hospitals they can go to. They can also go into a self imposed quarantine. It is important for the people not to self medicate. If the person comes here, then we will check and if they require hospitalisation, we will put them in an isolation room and send their samples to Pune or Delhi for testing. If the report is positive, then we start treatment either with Tamiflu or Relenza.

What is the biggest scare for health experts about this flu?

We do not know how the virus behaves. It has been around in the US for 10 years and there have been only sporadic cases. All of a sudden it blows up into an international epidemic. It is the fear of the unknown and the population not being immune to the virus. We are lucky that the medication works, but there is no vaccine to protect us. We are in a decent state now, but we have to be on guard.