This is beyond my understanding. How on earth Armenian health officials can state they are “prepared” for dealing with the swine flu cases, if they cannot even diagnose it in Armenia? I am not even going into other aspects of "preparedness". We have 3 suspected cases of swine flu, as officially reported. However, to confirm the diagnosis, analyses were sent to London, and will come back in 20-25 days (!!) Truly, a sign of ‘great preparedness’ in the face of possible outburst.
P.S... and in Ukraine
*pictures - (1) by Photolur, via ankakh.com; (2) by AFP/GETTY, via Telegraph
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Yesterday I saw a guy wearing one of those surgical masks on the street. Two days ago I passed a girl meeting her friends. She was all panicky to her friends: "Mi pachek! Mi pachek! Khozi grip ka!"
I agree with you!My nephew had a high fever and all the symptoms of the flu, they saw a doctor, and the doctor said it was "angina" (sore throat). Thankfully he is feeling better, but how do they know it was not swine flu?
Interestingly, during the day, Armenian health officials changed the wording: they are now speaking of "cases of swine flu", which are "confirmed" in our laboratory but need confirmation from London too.
As to the preparedness, it became obvious that the Ministry of Health did not manage to stock up enough doses of tamiflu - the most effective proven medication, and only now they started ordering more doses in a rush. Also, apparently, they do not have a proper stock of H1N1 vaccination. I have to be honest, I have reservations about H1N1 vaccination, as I am not convinced that it has passed through a rigorous testing via clinical trials, and the whole process was speed up too much. However, normal anti-flu vaccination should be helpful too (+ Tamiflu), providing the Ministry of Health has enough of general anti-flu vaccines, which is not clear.
Re panic: I can imagine, but there is absolutely no need for panic. The whole "swine flu" thing has been blown out of proportions, and allegedly serves WHO and drug companies interests. The evidence so far shows that it's no more substantially severe compared to a 'normal' flu. At least, that's a picture as of now.
They'll probably start prescribing antibiotics instead of Tamiflu.
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