H1N1: Are we ready? (Gerry Nott)

Should I take the vaccine? Will schools be closed? Should I be scared? Is it safe to travel?

Aug. 29, 2009 (Ottawa Citizen) -- Today's paper is a special edition of the Ottawa Citizen. It's designed to help inform you about H1N1 -- the swine flu -- and help you measure the risk to you and your family, should it return this fall.

We've taken the rare step of building the entire paper around the central themes of prevention, detection and protection, and have tried to consider every issue you could face in the months ahead.

H1N1 might just be the real thing -- the most deadly flu outbreak since the 1919 strain killed more than 50 million people worldwide. Or it might be Y2K hype all over again -- that media-fanned hysteria that saw all of us poised for the apocalypse when 1999 rolled into 2000. Then nothing happened.

The H1N1 virus has already left a trail of death as it travelled both hemispheres on its first pass. And while death from flu is an annual and commonplace occurrence, leading experts in Ottawa, in Canada and around the world have raised the alarm about what might happen next, to levels seldom heard before.

So what's troubling them -- and why should it trouble you?

First, the H1N1 vaccine will be rolled out with a shorter testing period than the annual seasonal flu vaccine. In other words, we may not know all the potential side-effects. And if H1N1 mutates during its rebound round -- as many think it could -- the vaccine may not work.

Second, the epidemiology of H1N1 suggests some troubling peculiarities. Most recently, Canadian doctors have discovered that 40-year-olds, many previously healthy, appear most at risk of developing severe swine flu. The severe form also targets children under five.

Finally, H1N1 has spread rapidly, particularly in settings where young people congregate, meaning schools, dorms and sports dressing rooms could all serve as incubators for the virus.

Experts with the World Health Organization have predicted up to one-third of the world's population could become infected with H1N1.

And in Canada, the federal health minister has set the stage for a health-care crisis. "What may come this fall is something that could test all of us, possibly to a limit we've never experienced," Leona Aglukkaq said this month.

Today's edition of the Citizen is devoted to helping you understand H1N1. It is intended not to panic, but to inform -- to answer your questions, allay your fears and help you plan. In each section, you'll find stories, information boxes and Q&As on everything from what minor sports organizations are doing to limit the spread of the illness to who would drive the buses and staff the hospitals if a doomsday scenario of a massive outbreak takes hold in Ottawa.

We'll help measure the risk, offer some perspective, and urge calls to action. Today's paper is intended to be a resource for you, to be kept and referred to in the weeks ahead. Visit our website, ottawacitizen.com/flu, for breaking news on H1N1, and for more stories, videos and podcasts to help you prepare.

Gerry Nott
Ottawa Citizen Editor-in-Chief

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/health/H1N1+ready/1942561/story.html