H1N1 Information

November 4th, 2009 by Matvey Kipershtein

Swine Flu or H1N1 seems to be the hottest topic now.

Many of my patients ask me what they should do. Vaccinate or not vaccinate?

While it is not my scope of practise to advise on vaccinations, I do believe that providing information and an opportunity to make informed choices is my direct responsibility.

Unfortunately most of the people I spoke to make their choices based on the overhyped media attention. What I always suggest is to go to the source.

My best source of information regarding swine flu is World Health Organisation.

Their website http://www.who.int/en/ has a variety of proven statistics about any disease, including the H1N1.

Please take a few minutes and browse these stats. This will allow you to have a very clear picture about the spread of the swine flue, and also about chances of dying from complications of this virus.

You can also take a look at the stats for other diseases such as regular flu, tuberculosis or hepatitis.

Any vaccination can potentially have complications. For example the Guillain-Barré syndrome that developed in some people after 1976 swine flu vaccination campaign led to the withdrawal of the vaccine at that time.

http://www.who.int/immunization/newsroom/H1N1_vac_q_a_16709.pdf

So please take your time and look up all the information you can before you make a decision about your strategy to prevent infection with H1N1.

After all, you are making very important decision about your health.

Tags: h1n1, swine flu
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