First snufflings of swine flu

The clinic I am working at has been shut until Thursday, because of worries about swine flu!

It just goes to prove that even the remotest communities are privy to the press in this globalised world of ours.

Whether or not there is a real risk to the schoolchildren of catching the disease we are unsure - I´m not convinced not going to school will work as a preventative measure anyway, considering that many of the families here, especially in the poorer communities in the foothills I am working in, live tightly packed with up to ten people in a one-roomed house, all breathing in the same smoke-filled air.

Hopefully we will be fully functioning again by the end of the week, at least for the walk-in patients. Their immediate needs of treatment for common infections in this area are far greater than an incipient risk of swine flu, although I can see that in such communities one person contracting the illness could lead to a complete local epidemic, which would have great cost to the villagers as it is harvest time for many of their crops.

But as with all things out of human control, all we can do is be as prepared as possible and just ´wait and see´.