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Health officials assuring citizens of availability of swine flu medicines. Over the past weekend, mobile phone text messages were sent with the message that swine flu was in the country and had indeed already claimed 2 lives! One of the messages read thus,
“Ministry of Health warning; to avoid swine flu which is suspected to be already in Uganda, you are advised not to eat pork or be near pigs for the time being. The first case [of swine flu] reported in Ggaba and Nakulabye. Send this message to 25 people and MTN will reward you with airtime.”
The government was quick to come out assuring everybody that the messages were sent out by a malicious person and were not true at all. Ggaba and Nakulabye, mentioned in the messages, are the best known pork joints around Kampala with most of restaurants offering pork of all sorts on their menus. MTN is the biggest telecommunications company in the country. The messages which was spreading just like the usual email forwards caused panic to the extent that legislators asked for a full explanation from the health officials.
Many people still believe that swine flu is associated with pigs and because of this, many still believe they can escape the virus as long as they do not get near pigs or eat pork. Non pork eaters have been suspected of being behind the messages especially religions that are against eating pork.
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however, I don’t think it is a reason to panic...take your normal hygeine precautions and see a doctor with symptoms such as temperature, chest pains, etc...
@oscar: in africa, we really see a doctor. I have never seen a doctor because i have flu!! The local herbs take care of that for me.
@oscar: in africa, we really see a doctor. I have never seen a doctor because i have flu!! The local herbs take care of that for me.
To be honest, here in Mexico, we don’t visit doctors to quickly either...In the pharmacies we can go buy antibiotics, injections, etc for very low costs...Most Mother’s have the pharmaceutical knowledge of doctors here, name a symptom and they can rattle off the meds, amount of mg. and how many doses per day within seconds..
my wife uses more alternative meds:teas and other homeopathic meds in drops or disolvable sublengual sugar pills...
BUT they say that may be why we had so many deaths here...We DON’T go to doctors, we self medicate, and we hole up and bed for a few days...Unfortuantely for some reason, this virus moved quickly into critical pneumonia causing many to die before even realizing it wasn’t a simple ”flu” which would pass.
Transmission of swine influenza virus from pigs to humans is not common and does not always cause human influenza, often only resulting in the production of antibodies in the blood.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swine_flu
Were the first people who contracted this virus in mexico connected with pig farming at all?
Before the BIG swine flu outbreak, apparently more than half of this small town came down with an illness with the same symptoms earlier in the year..There were no deaths...
This town has been fighting an indistrialized multibillion dollar pig farm for quite a while: because of flies, stench, dirty water, etc...
Many who became ill, worked on the pig farm...then of course, went home to their families..
However they have found NO absolute connection as of yet...
But the same happened in Canada, but reverse, supposedly a man infected his pigs with swine flu...
Scientists have said there is absolutely NO HARM in eating pork, but have yet to rule out living amongst (industrial type, not your local farmer) large swine farms.
You would think that a more industrialized company would consider cleanliness of the animals as priority. I have worked with pigs before, about 100, on a farm, almost bare-feet. Every morning i would thoroughly clean the stys wit water before serving the day’s meal and never got sick at all, not even contracting jiggers!
I think they are among the easiest animals to keep as they almost everything ;)
