Frog flu warning? Hop to it ...

BY TERESA O'CONNOR

Stop Press. Epidemic. Pandemic. Pandemonium. Fear. Crisis. Emergency. Beat-Up.

Update 314 - Influenza Z (K2Q2) Frog Flu. Issued at 8am, Tuesday, May 12, issued just after Update 313, issued at 7.45am, Tuesday, May 12.

New Zealand situation: Updated (or not as the case may be) numbers. The number of confirmed and probable cases reported to the Ministry of Histrionics as at 7am today are: two confirmed cases of Influenza Z (K2Q2) - no change since 7.45am.

But we here at the ministry, concerned as we are for public safety, want to remind you that Update 313, issued 15 minutes ago, reported a leap in the number of cases, a 100 per cent increase in fact, from one confirmed case to two confirmed cases of the retrovenal virus K2Q2, commonly known as frog flu.

Probable cases: These are very hard to determine as someone with frog flu is virtually symptomless, so it is very hard to distinguish them from the normal, healthy population. But clear signs of infection include a croaky throat (NB this is not to be confused with a similar symptom associated with dog flu, a barking cough) wear and tear on the knee joints, combined with a propensity to do odd little leaps into the air while going about one's normal business.

Using these symptoms as definitive signs of infection, there are now 57 probable cases.

These probable cases have to provide a sample of body fluid which is then analysed for DNA, PGA, MMP, DHB and KGB, with a tiny bit of genetic sequencing thrown in, at our sophisticated testing laboratory in Turkmenistan, to confirm the presence of frog flu. This process takes approximately 18 months.

As at 8am today, the number of suspected cases (people exhibiting two or more of the above symptoms but with no laboratory analysis of body fluids) remains at 92. There has been no change in the 15 long minutes since 7.45am today.

The latest figures show 133 people in isolation or in quarantine on Somes Island, up from 132 at 7.15am today. They are being treated with a range of unguents and emollients and various lotions and potions.

There appears to be clusters of infection close to bodies of water, notably lakes, rivers and creeks.

Authorities are asking anyone with any of the definitive symptoms to stay home and advise the following treatments: for croaky throats, gargle four-hourly with salt water; for wear and tear on the knee joints, apply bandages soaked in frog porridge; and for the odd little leaps in the air, place a large weight on each shoulder.

The most effective treatment for frog flu appears to be Webiflu, researched, developed, tested and approved in a pharmaceutical company laboratory in Uzbekistan.

Well, it appeared to work on a couple of people there anyway and it made the manufacturers plenty of dosh, so they were happy.

The World Histrionics Organisation has announced that the first cross-species infection of this dangerous new virus appears to have arisen in a distant kingdom, possibly somewhere in Central Africa, when a beautiful but betrayed princess kissed her unfaithful lover and he turned into a frog.

Transmission appears to be through close physical contact.

Scientists around the world are working around the clock in an attempt to work out the molecular structure of the frog flu virus.

They fear that unless a vaccine is developed soon, the virus may mutate and become an even more virulent virus, already code-named the toad virus.

As more discerning readers might have realised, I am struggling to take New Zealand's public health authorities' response to the supposed threat of swine flu too seriously.

After all, people die every year from the flu, don't they? Why didn't the Brisbane strain, which killed six Australians, provoke such a response?

And don't we know by now that large-scale industrialised pig farming (or beef, or poultry) where the use of drugs, particularly antibiotics as growth promoters, has taken the place of animal husbandry, poses serious health risks, not only to the poor animals, but to humans as well?

Don't we yet realise that pharmaceutical companies, which wield great power in our capitalist marketplace, have it both ways: producing the antibiotics for use as growth promoters in industrial farming and also the treatments for the human illnesses that arise from that?

I would dearly love the money that has been mounted to fight the swine flu in New Zealand to be invested in fighting the far more serious real, as opposed to potential, pandemics in our country. What about the pandemic of alcohol and drug-induced crime, of which the tragedy in Napier is but one recent example?

Imagine if the resources poured into fighting the supposed threat of swine flu were poured into providing alcohol and drug treatment centres devoted to helping people live their lives without alcohol and/or drugs, rather than the namby-pamby, politically correct, colluding-with-the-alcoholic/addict "harm minimisation" philosophy underpinning treatment at present.

Or, imagine if those resources were ploughed into fighting poverty, how lives of individuals, families and communities could be transformed.

Imagine if the Health Ministry's swine flu updates were replaced by daily child abuse updates, with numbers of confirmed, probable and suspected cases.

They would make very sobering reading and hopefully prompt a public outcry at New Zealand's appalling record in this area.

What the response to the supposed threat of swine flu has revealed is that public health authorities can and do respond quickly, and as one.

They are not fragmented across many different providers and contracts (there's no money to be made in pubic health) and thus can be mobilised quickly and efficiently. So I guess we can and should be grateful that, should a real pandemic come our way, we can rely on our public health authorities to be ready and able to respond.

 

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