Swine flu and commonsense
Given the shortfalls of the Relenza and Tamiflu antiviral drugs in the US, Boston Herald editor Jules Crittenden is critical of President Obama's swine flu emergency: "When you have a disaster looming, you need to look like you're doing something ... And when it's over, everyone is going to want to know whether the president did everything he could to limit the damage." Crittenden has his doubts.
Meanwhile, Dr. Vinay Goyal, head of the Nuclear Medicine Department and Thyroid clinic at Riddhivinayak Cardiac and Critical Centre in Malad, e-mailed Rainy Day to say that regardless of precautions it's almost impossible to avoid coming into contact with H1N1. But he suggests six commonsense steps instead of vaccination. Here goes:
1. Frequent hand-washing.2. "Hands-off-the-face". Resist all temptations to touch any part of face (unless you want to eat, bathe or slap).
3. Gargle twice a day with warm salt water (use Listerine if you don't trust salt). H1N1 takes 2-3 days after initial infection in the throat/ nasal cavity to proliferate and show characteristic symptoms. Simple gargling prevents proliferation. In a way, gargling with salt water has the same effect on a healthy individual that Tamiflu has on an infected one.
4. Clean your nostrils at least once every day with warm salt water. Not everybody may be good at Jala Neti or Sutra Neti (very good Yoga asanas to clean nasal cavities), but blowing the nose hard once a day and swabbing both nostrils with cotton buds dipped in warm salt water is very effective in bringing down viral population.
5. Boost your natural immunity with foods that are rich in vitamin C (Amla and other citrus fruits). If you have to supplement with vitamin C tablets, make sure that it also has zinc to boost absorption.
6. Drink as much of warm liquids (tea, coffee, etc) as you can. Drinking warm liquids has the same effect as gargling, but in the reverse direction. They wash off proliferating viruses from the throat into the stomach where they cannot survive, proliferate or do any harm.
Don't know about the Yoga asanas and the greengrocer round the corner doesn't stock Amla, but what Dr. Goyal suggests sounds very sensible. Sadly, slapping faces will be out well until the "emergency" has passed. But everyone has to make sacrifices in these difficult times.
