tetano
Editor, Senior Moderator
Two Wednesdays ago, Dawn Watson began noticing a "very scratchy feeling" in her throat, along with a mild cough. By Friday, the journalist from Belfast was bedbound with swine flu, where she would have to remain for the next week.
Dawn is one of several victims as the H1N1 virus returns -- something doctors feel could be an annual event for the next half decade.
The numbers of people contracting the illness have increased over the last weeks, as have the number of deaths, both here and worldwide.
Just last Friday, four more flu fatalities were confirmed in Ireland, and a further five in the North. Several thousand cases of flu have been diagnosed in the last week, 80% of those the H1N1 variation.
"It lasted much longer than a normal flu," Dawn says. "And while with normal flu you feel it instantly, this crept up over a few days. On the Friday, I drove to Dublin and was feeling pretty poorly.
"By the time I got home that evening, I couldn't move and had to go to bed. I felt exhausted, wiped out. I think the main difference from normal flu is that swine flu is very chest-focused.
...
http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/swine-flu-is-back-and-its-here-to-stay-2510981.html
Dawn is one of several victims as the H1N1 virus returns -- something doctors feel could be an annual event for the next half decade.
The numbers of people contracting the illness have increased over the last weeks, as have the number of deaths, both here and worldwide.
Just last Friday, four more flu fatalities were confirmed in Ireland, and a further five in the North. Several thousand cases of flu have been diagnosed in the last week, 80% of those the H1N1 variation.
"It lasted much longer than a normal flu," Dawn says. "And while with normal flu you feel it instantly, this crept up over a few days. On the Friday, I drove to Dublin and was feeling pretty poorly.
"By the time I got home that evening, I couldn't move and had to go to bed. I felt exhausted, wiped out. I think the main difference from normal flu is that swine flu is very chest-focused.
...
http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/swine-flu-is-back-and-its-here-to-stay-2510981.html