Friday, July 31, 2009

malaysiakini and the SPREAD of A(H1N1)...How to Protect YOURSELF

According to this malaysiakini article A(H1N1): 'It's your duty to take care of yourself' some Malaysians are not doing enough to reduce the spread of the pandemic and even some doctors in hospitals seem to be unaware of the proper procedures to treat suspected cases and that has resulted in a few deaths.
So I would like to share my own family's experience about A(H1N1).
About 10 days ago, my wife and I attended our son's graduation in London and we spent 2 nights with my daughter and son-in-law.
Straight after the graduation we left for Bath where we spent 3 nights. On the day before we were supposed to return to London to collect our suitcases and spend another night with them, my daughter called to say her husband, who is a doctor in a hospital, was sick with suspected A(H1N1).
It was a self-diagnosis but he later told us he had been seeing quite a few cases of A(H1N1). Apart from feeling rotten with body aches and fever, he was OK. So he stayed home and rested for three days.
We spent the night in another place after collecting our bags and flew back to Singapore the next day.
We arrived in Singapore on a Sunday night and on Monday morning my wife told me she had a fever during the night. She is not such a good traveller as I and I thought it was her usual "travel hangover" but no, she said she definitely had chills during the night.
So she saw the doctor in the clinic downstairs and came back with common flu medication and also some colourful brochures on "What to do as a Patient" and "What to do as a Care-giver".
I will upload those later after I scan.
The basic instructions are:

1.Avoid public transport
2.Watch out for the severe symptoms and quickly get to a hospital (not the clinic)
3.Keep a "2 metre" rule distance from the patient.
4.Wear a proper mask if you have to break that "2 metre" rule.
5.Maintain a clean environment with regular cleaning of exposed surfaces.
6.Wash hands often and thoroughly.
7.Do not leave home unless absolutely necessary.
8.Do not have meals together with the patient as the food can get contaminated and also you cannot wear a mask while eating.

Of course nothing is fool-proof and I am sure the pandemic will slow considerably if these simple measures are taken.
Both my wife and son-in-law have returned to work. Meanwhile I am taking 2 tablets of buffered Vitamin C daily as I fall under the high risk category.

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