Paracetamol, plenty of fluids & rest.

It’s like being gifted a designer bag by someone you hardly know, you don’t quite know if it’s the genuine article. I still don’t know if I actually had swine flu, though my doctor insists I did. How does he know? They didn’t test me; he was diagnosing and refusing to give me medicines on the phone.

 We’re not allowed to show up at the surgery and spread it about. I could have had measles for all I know. It felt like any other nasty viral fever, a week or 10 days of fever and stuff, and then you’re left feeling like you’ve been flattened by a truck for another week or so. In hindsight, it’s no big deal, really, ho hum.

Given the completely unnecessary palaver everyone is making about swine flu, one is more likely to die of sheer worry than of any flu. It doesn’t, in the least bit help, that media, governments and health authorities in nation after nation are following almost identical patterns, about as predictable as the flu cycle.

It’s hit Indian shores about a month after we’ve been through the whole cycle of panic and alarmism, trying to first contain and isolate, then test and treat, then a shortage of medicines as everyone panics every time we sneeze, then a move towards trying to identify only the really risky cases and treating them, and finally by that time everyone’s already had it, and recovered. We were all given dire warnings for weeks, so when I sneezed I just hoped it would go away.

By the time I summoned up the courage to call the National Health Service, they’d stopped quarantining people in their homes. “No point, it’s too widespread already,” the doctor said. I’d been giving myself heart attacks worrying.

Here’s the real dope from a survivor. Don’t panic. No, it is not fatal. Not by itself, only from additional complications and usually if you are pregnant, already have other serious illnesses like heart or kidney disease, or something major.

Gas masks are useless. It’s a nasty li’l virus, it’s extremely fast and sociable, it transmits itself like the common cold. Anti-virals like Tamiflu are not preventives. Don’t just pop ‘em, even if you get hold of them. They have to be taken in exactly the first 48 hours after getting the infection, it’s useless else.

The most effective treatment is paracetamol, plenty of fluids, rest, and chicken soup. That’s what I was given, despite nagging incessantly at my doctors for anti-virals. I’m not eligible for them, apparently, because in the UK, antivirals are being stingily doled out only to high-risk categories. So I panicked, muttered darkly about being stuck in a backward country, and got someone in India to send me supplies of Oseltamivir. I called again. My rather tetchy GP told me not to whine, drink my soup and it would go away in a week or 10 days. Surprisingly, it did. By the time I was actually allowed into the surgery, and did a battery of tests in retrospect for any secondary or lingering infection, it was all over.

Globally, WHO has officially abandoned any attempts to contain swine flu — the medical strategy in pandemic hit countries is to identify outbreak clusters because this bug is neighbourly. Next, to identify the most ‘at risk’ patients The rest don’t need anything. Yeah, I didn’t believe the NHS when they told me that either, but they were right. This time..