H1N1 scare
Have sore throat, fever, cold, breathing trouble etc? Don’t panic!
Go to the nearest hospital, get an influenza screening done. The most common is a nasal swab test. You will get the result in 4 hrs.
If test is positive, you have a minor chance of getting any of the strains under the influenza A from H1N1 to H10N7. You need to do a PCR test to be 100% sure of H1N1.
If you live in UAE, PCR is done only in government hospitals and only Al Wasl for children.
However, they dont do PCR test for all. They do PCR test only for children under 5 years, pregnant women, geriartric patients and people with any underlying medical conditions.
Since the most common influenzas right now are normal human influenza and H1N1, doctors immediately start you on Tamiflu.
People strongly need to use their common sense here, than starting on Tamiflu. Tamiflu is said to have renal and hepatic toxicity, especially for babies.
I heard the other day from an ex-colleague of mine, a peadeatrician in NMC started tamiflu for his 1 year old baby, inspite of influenza A test coming out negative.
If you live in Dubai and children are small, Al Wasl Hospital is the best place to go.
Filed under: Life in Dubai on September 15th, 2009
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