by Dr Pandula Siribaddana

Created on: November 11, 2009

H1N1 was a new seasonal influenza strain which grew in pandemic proportion engulfing almost 199 countries infecting almost 30,000 individuals from its discovery on April up to June 2009. This illustrate the contagiousness of the disease as well as the possibility for a more dangerous or deadly infection to cause more fatalities than what we have seen with 2009 Pandemic H1N1 infection.

Therefore, the opportunity is being granted for the human kind to seek all possibilities to avoid future tragedies and better understanding on the medical sciences behind the control measures is one step towards this goal.

How does it spread?

The H1N1 virus as with other influenza viruses will be transmitted from one person to another through droplets or other similar body fluids. Once a person is exposed to these body fluids, unless they have a good immune response towards that virus, it's likely that they will develop the viral infection. But, depending on the immune status as well as other physical and biological characteristics, the severity of the disease will vary from person to person. But, it should be remembered that a patient can be infective or can spread the disease a day prior to appearance of the symptoms till 7 days from the onset of symptoms. Based on these clinical characteristics as well as biological factors of the virus, experts have recommended certain strategies in order to control the spread of infection.

What is the basis for infection control measures?

Hand washing

The most important of all measures would be the frequent hand washing with soap and if soap is not available to use an alcohol based cleanser. This will prevent the germs from entering into a person's body through touching the eyes, nose and mouth. The washing should be through and the use of running water would be more effective. The process will flush the viruses from the hand surface as well as make an unsuitable environment with the use of soap or alcohol leading to ineffective viruses.

The reason to recommend hand washing is because we touch the surfaces which can be contaminated by HIN1 virus containing droplets that will be emitted by an infected person while sneezing or coughing. Thus, these viruses can survive in these surfaces for sufficient time for it to move into another host.

Wearing face masks or respirators

Face masks will be able to prevent larger droplets that will be emitted when an ill patient coughs or sneezes, but it will fail to protect against smaller particles that will

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>