Influenza A (H1N1)

The recent outbreak of the formerly known as H1N1 virus (formerly known as Swine Flu), has brought chaos to the world and every country is doing what it can to contain the virus and prevent spreading.

In Asia, we have faced two major viruses over these few years, the bird flu and SARS, and various countries are taking steps to prevent H1N1 from entering. Singapore had set up thermal scanners to scan anyone with a high temperature. . Those that have flu-like symtoms and had traveled to infected countries within seven days will be tested. Samples will be taken and tested in the laboratory for H1N1. People returning from H1N1 infected countries need to take LOA and be home quarantined for a week.

However, in many cases, people still get infected with the virus. This shows an ineffectiveness of the measures taken. Although they may already bbe taking the best measures, it is clearly not enough. We are not really as prepared for the flu as we thought and we need to take more precautions to prevent other viruses from spreading into Singapore in the future. However, I understand that Singapore, having a small and open economy, will be very hard to prevent the virus from spreading to the people. We had learned from previous experiences to react fast, but due to a lack of knowledge of the flu, we are unable to stop it effectively.For people that need to travel abroad due to various reasons, there is a huge inconvenience caused.

There is definitely not a foolproof method to completely stop the outbreak of a pandemic, as the virus may already be spreading before the symptoms are shown. The measures taken before are inadequate. The spreading of the virus will be much more slower if more measures are taken. However, there is nothing that we can do now besides having more preparations, in case the virus starts to mutate.