[펌] 우리가 'flu'에서 자유로울 수 있을까요?

[지나가다가]

제 취미가 하루에 한번 불룸버그에 들어가서 헤드라인 뉴스 쭈르륵 보는 것이랍니다. 국내뉴스 (방송, 신문, 인터넷기사)에 나오지 않는 중요 기사들이 종종 나오거던요..  이번에는 돼지독감이야기..

어제 지하철을 타고 가는데, 젊은 엄마 둘이 자기들끼리 이야기하면서, 분당에서는 돼지독감으로 국민학교가 문을 닫은 다음부터는 엄마들이 학원에 아이들을 안 보내는 경우가 생긴다고..

The U.K. Health Protection Agency yesterday reported 100,000 new cases of swine flu in England last week, almost double the week before

일주일에 2배로 증가하는 상태가 되어서, 영국에서는 돼지독감이 'upstoppable' 단계로 판단을 하고, 통제센터쪽에 전화를 해서 전화로 진찰받고 집에서 스스로 몸을 조심해서 머무르면서 우편으로 배달되는 Tamiflu를 복용하는 시스템이 가동되기 시작했다고 합니다.  

병이나 나쁜 것은 모두 '동조화'되는 것을 보면 영국이 일이 '영국'만의 일은 아닐 것 같다는 생각이 들어서 걱정입니다.


http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=af3AuLkU00Ao

By Michelle Fay Cortez

July 24 (Bloomberg) -- Jessica Kennedy got a sore throat after going to Glastonbury, the iconic U.K. musical festival where 140,000 fans camped out to see Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young jam during the last week of June.

Then she started feeling disoriented. Three days after her first symptom, Kennedy was bedridden with a 103-degree fever.

“I was really out of it,” Kennedy, who works at the charity Water Aid, said in a telephone interview. “I was slightly hallucinating.”

The 24-year-old Londoner was diagnosed with swine flu without ever seeing a doctor. She filled out an online checklist, and got an automatic call back from the local swine flu hotline. Since the number of cases in north London was so high, including in her home of Stoke Newington, the doctor said she probably had influenza and advised her to stay home.

The U.K., which yesterday reported 100,000 new flu cases in the last week, is stepping up its unprecedented approach to treatment with a nationwide dial-in service for people who suspect they have swine flu. Patients like Kennedy can call and talk to one of as many as 2,000 trained operators. The goal of the National Pandemic Flu Service is to ease the burden on the nation’s doctors and make it simpler to get antiviral drugs.

Managing Demand

“The pandemic flu service is quite an innovative way to manage the demand without overwhelming our doctors and nurses in primary care centers with a gush of patients coming through,” said Ara Darzi, the U.K. health minister who stepped down this week. “Our model is designed to treat patients in their own homes and their own communities, rather than overwhelm hospitals,” he said in an interview on July 20, his last day in office.

The U.K. is focused on speeding treatment, after abandoning efforts to contain or mitigate the spread of the disease, which the World Health Organization has called “unstoppable.” Initially the government tried to prevent the spread of the pandemic virus, known as H1N1, by testing people for the infection, quarantining patients, giving them and their close contacts Roche Holding AG’s Tamiflu and closing schools.

The government has spent 2.5 million pounds ($4.1 million) on the new pandemic service, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health said in an e-mail. About 9 million people have called or accessed the service’s Web site since it went live yesterday afternoon, Liam Donaldson, chief medical officer for England, said today in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp.

Alternative Channel

The service “opens up an alternative channel of access to the National Health Service through the telephone and Internet,” Donaldson said yesterday at a press briefing in London. “Call center operatives will follow medically prescribed algorithms.”

Some patients with suspected flu, such as pregnant women and children less than a year old, should see their doctors in person, Donaldson said.

The U.K. Health Protection Agency yesterday reported 100,000 new cases of swine flu in England last week, almost double the week before. Doctors reported 155 cases of flu-like illness per 100,000 people across England and Wales in the week ended July 19, the Royal College of General Practitioners said yesterday. That’s approaching the epidemic level of 200 cases per 100,000 seen in the U.K. winter of 1999-2000.

Sharp Increase

“In the last couple of weeks there has been a sharp increase in the number of cases of influenza, and a gradual spread across the country,” said Douglas Fleming, director of the Royal College of General Practitioners research and surveillance center, in a telephone interview. “It was predominantly in school children and young adults, and now it’s spreading across the age ranges.”

The outbreak could lead to more than 65,000 deaths, the government estimated last week. The virus killed more than 700 worldwide since April, according to the WHO in Geneva.

Doctors in hard-hit areas such as London have seen a six- fold increase in their workload, mainly in the form of calls from people worried about getting influenza, said Laurence Buckman, chairman of the British Medical Association’s general practitioners committee and a physician in the north London district of Finchley.

“It’s much more the people who are worried about flu, rather than the people with it,” Buckman said in a telephone interview. “The phone calls are so many that you can’t deliver care for the people in the room.”

Flu Friends

The program includes distribution centers where “flu friends” can go to pick up a course of Tamiflu to fight the disease. The friends are supposed to slip the medication through a mail slot to reduce the risk of transmission. Given the mild infections and quick recovery most people have, quarantines haven’t been enforced.

The new service should make an enormous difference, if it holds up well, Buckman said. A similar initiative in Finchley was disbanded after the volume of calls overwhelmed the phone banks, he said.

“If this means that people who are ill can get to see me, that will be better,” Buckman said. “This is meant to help people who have concerns, who have such obvious flu that they don’t need a doctor or nurse to get access to Tamiflu, or if they want reassurance that they don’t need the drug.”

European health authorities are stepping up their surveillance of swine flu rates in the U.K. It is the only area with widespread disease and high intensity levels in the 53 countries in the WHO’s European Region.

Infection Rates

England reported the highest infection rates seen in the past eight years, even though the influenza season is traditionally finished in July. The country accounted for 65 percent of all confirmed cases in the region, according to a report from the WHO’s office for Europe. The next highest rates came in Spain, accounting for 8 percent of cases, and Israel, with 6 percent of cases, the report found.

While the surge in cases is worrisome, the number of people dying from the disease is still somewhat low, officials said. The number of swine flu deaths was 26, the government said yesterday, the same as it reported last week.

“You have to remember that swine flu is a mild illness for most people,” Buckman said. “Quite a number have few or no symptoms, who are barely ill. During the early phases, I swabbed a few people who were positive who had no symptoms at all.”

False Positives

The aggressive approach may boost the number of people who are diagnosed with swine flu, even though they have a different condition, Darzi said. Others may be erroneously told they are free of the infection, he said.

“I have no doubt there will be some false positives and some false negatives,” he said. “You have to remember everything we do has risks and benefits. I think the benefits outweigh the risks here.”

Kennedy, who says she had “proper flu,” fully recovered from her illness while staying home and resting.

“I’d like to hope that I will have some natural immunity,” said Kennedy. “I’ve heard that the flu changes so fast that it doesn’t always work that way. I’ll probably get it again.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Michelle Fay Cortez in London at mcortez@bloomberg.net

[미래의학도]

지금 국내도 비슷한 상황이예요...
얼마전까지 플루 치료비용 국가부담이였지만... 인제는 그냥 자기들이 알아서 치료받고 보건소로 전화통보만 하라고 하더라구요....
우리나라도 알게모르게 신종플루 유행중인데 에휴..

[영국에 있습니다]

지난 주에 아이들 방학은 시작했는데..
일주일 내내 날씨도 너무 안 좋고..(오늘은 20도 밑인듯..춥습니다)
플루도 걱정되어서..해 날 때만 뒷마당에서만 놀게 했네요. 집 밖으로 아예 안 나갔습니다.

오늘 글 올릴까 하다가 괜히 안 좋은 내용 올려서 걱정드릴까봐 안 했던 얘기를 써 주셨네요.'
요즘 같아선 제가 걱정되는 것도 바로 이거에요.

멕시코, 미국에 이어 영국이 지금 발병자가 어마어마하게 늘어났는데..
(지난 주에 영국내 발병만 10만건, 총 입원자는 5-600여명, 위중한 상태는 70명에 이릅니다)

이게 속도의 차이지 다른나라도 영국에 이어 이런 상황이 발생할까 걱정이 큽니다.
특히 우리나라가요..이 플루 광풍이 피해 갔으면 좋겠어요.

백신은 9월 초에야 상용화 된다고 하고..

이 플루에 가장 취약한 계층이 아이들과 임산부,
아이들이 바이러스를 제일 잘 옮긴다고 합니다
어쩌면 개학이 늦어질 지도 모른다네요.

[..]

여기는 아마 방학 끝나고 나면 초등학생들 많이 감염되어서 올겁니다.
위험하다고 해외나가지 마라고 그렇게 얘기해도 겁도 없이 어학연수 많이 보냅디다.
나갔던아이들 옮아와서 2차 감염으로 이어지면 어찌 될지 이번 여름방학 끝나고 걱정됩니다.

[...]

진짜 무서워요. 지난주에 아들때문에 극장갔었는데 뒷사람이 김침하고 재채기 하는게 얼마나 신경쓰이는지, 당분간 극장도 금지입니다. 울회사동료의 남편분회사에 필리핀갔다와서 계속 열나고 기침해서 보건소 갔다가 플루라고해서 이틀 입원했다가 퇴원했다네요. 그래서 그 남편분도 보건소가서 검사하고, 다행히 이상없다고 해서 얼마나 안심했는지.. 그런데 이런식으로 알게 모르게 퍼져나간다면 진짜 어디서 어떻게 걸릴 지 모르겠네요.ㅠㅠ