Swine Flu

Karim_myBagheri

it's making a comeback.

I thought we had seen the last of this virus. over here it's closed wards at Leicester Hospital as people have been infected: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/leicester-hospital-swine-flu-outbreak-7392007

and four kids have been diagnosed with it in Hull yesterday.

In Ukraine it's pretty serious: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/swine-flu-outbreak-kills-more-than-300-people-in-ukraine-as-virus-reaches-epidemic-levels-in-some-a6881236.html

DamoNorthStand

Dr Philip Monk, from Public Health England, said it was unlikely it would ever be known how the flu got onto the wards.

"It is a normal winter - and swine flu is the normal flu and the number of cases is not that high across the East Midlands," he said.

They seem to be saying that Swine Flu effectively is the main flu nowadays. 98% wont even need to seek hospital treatment - but still will be ill enough to recognise the differences between a cold and flu

Lincsaddick

It's thought that the virus was brought into the hospital by a visitor.
I have thought it peculiar for a long time that hospitals/the NHS in general can spend a lot on hygiene and cleaning, but yet visitors can enter wards full with sick people without any check on their health and/or hygienic state .. a visitor could literally come straight from the pig farm to visit his old mum *(or whoever) in hospital and carry with him all kinds of dirt, bacteria and viruses .. it needs sorting

LuckyReds

Lincsaddick said:

It's thought that the virus was brought into the hospital by a visitor.
I have thought it peculiar for a long time that hospitals/the NHS in general can spend a lot on hygiene and cleaning, but yet visitors can enter wards full with sick people without any check on their health and/or hygienic state .. a visitor could literally come straight from the pig farm to visit his old mum *(or whoever) in hospital and carry with him all kinds of dirt, bacteria and viruses .. it needs sorting

I arrived directly from work to visit a family member on a post-operative care ward, when my brother and I were informed we couldn't leave our flowers on the ward (for hygiene reasons). Fair enough, they're really just a pot of dirt and allergens..

Then the same thought that you've mentioned above occurred to me; these flowers have been all over the ward already whilst we were visiting.. more to the point, I've been in contact with those flowers so technically my clothes and skin could be contaminated. Not to mention the usual coughs and colds that I'd been exposed to at work that day, and sitting under the air conditioning in April meant I most likely had a nice coating of germs all over me anyway!

It's also worth considering that even if you got people to wash their hands when they entered the ward (as staff do, and I think visitors may be encouraged to?) it would do very little, as I seem to recall that the proper way of washing your hands is up to the elbow - and that's one of the reasons scrubs are more hygienic than the US tradition of doctors wearing lab coats. (I may be wrong, but I think I remember Ben Goldacre stating that on an episode of QI!)