The influenza season is now well and truly upon us, with bouts of coughing, sneezing and sick days becoming more and more commonplace this time of the year.

But when it comes to the flu’s evil cousin, the swine flu, it would be advisable to treat the alarming reports of outbreaks in Egypt, Croatia, the UK and now the two cases in Malta with a certain degree of caution. Those who are concerned about the disputed merits of the vaccination should do their research and make an educated decision. Before queuing up for injections they should most certainly seek the advice of their family doctor, and after that even seek a second or third opinion on the matter.

To avoid the risk of being misconstrued and misinterpreted, it must be stated from the outset that it is by no means being suggested that anyone refrains from being vaccinated.

The fact that the medical community, both in Malta and abroad, is still far from any sort of consensus on the advisability of the vaccine, not to be confused with the seasonal influenza injection, should be enough cause in its own right to warrant a good, hard look at the merits and risks associated with the vaccine.

By all accounts, the risks of the vaccine, if any, are far outweighed by the risks of the swine flu itself but there are risks with the vaccine, as highlighted in many cases last year. Nevertheless, one would be well advised to seek as much counsel as possible, and to not simply take a leap of blind faith.

Swine flu, although potentially deadly, is far less deadly than the common influenza. Worldwide, the swine flu’s death toll has amounted to some five per cent of seasonal flu deaths. Global deaths from swine flu, according to the World Health Organisation, have amounted to 17,853 whereas WHO estimates the annual seasonal influenza claims the lives of between 250,000 and 500,000 people. 

Such figures are of little solace to those whose loved ones have contracted the virus, but they put what was once labelled as a ‘pandemic’ into context, and many are now asking whether the threat was really as serious as the panic that swept the globe last year.

The Council of Europe, which is holding an investigation into the WHO’s comportment and its basis for having declared a pandemic last year, has been particularly scathing in its criticism. No doubt, in Malta and in other parts of the world, there had been a great deal of ‘overselling’ of the vaccine last year.

The same, at least according to the head of health at the Council of Europe, Dr Wolfgang Wodarg, can be said of pharmaceutical companies, who are accused of influencing the World Health Organisation’s decision to declare the swine flu a pandemic.

This, Dr Wodarg said, ensured enormous gains by pharmaceutical companies while some countries, he said, “squandered” portions of their health budgets on what he described as a relatively mild illness.

So when it comes down to decision time, the best advice that could be dispensed is to do the homework, consult as widely as possible, make the most informed decision possible but, by no means be directed in the choice by fear or sensationalism.