Many of the problems and complications of swine flu are due to pneumonia. Sue and I recently got standard pneumonia vaccinations which protects against most of the common strains. It certainly can’t hurt.
It also appears that we’ve both had swine flu – and are fine now. Ours was the mild variety, and even with that you’ll be down for several days. Severe cases of swine flu often mean hospitalization. So, be careful, and wash your hands repeatedly during the day.
I hot it a while back and am still trying to recover. Next Time if I get it and don’t have any first line immunological defences I’m sure to die. I only hope the vaccine works specifically to prevent another dose of the virus.
You need a long memory and the 1918 Influenza virus killed 50 to 100 million people worldwide.
Read Mike Davis — The Monster at Our Door: The Global Threat of Avian Flu (2005) — to get a feel for the human ecology that drives these pandemics.
Several medical experts on NPR (one from CDC) have said that the danger from Swine Fu comes not because it is any worse than regular flu, but because no one has any resisteance, and therefore everyone (not vaccinated) can be expected to get it.
Regular flu affected 8% of the population in 2007-2008, and kills 4-7 people per 100,000 in the U.S.. Thus about 1,300 people in the U.S. can be expected to die from flu and complications each year. But if everyone is at risk (having no rsistance), the number jumps to about 17,000 even if it’s NOT worse.