The most important thing that needs to be done when there is a pandemic strain of the flu is to decide who gets vaccinated first.

Naturally, you would think it is the front-line medics.  The doctors who will carry out the diagnoses and prescribe the mdeicine, nurses to mop the sweaty brows of the convalescing, the ambulance drivers who will ferry the feverish from home to hospital.

Nope.

Not even close.

When there is a pandemic strain of a contagious disease, then it is far more important to vaccinate the army.

Yes, the army.

You see, people panic, become irrational…or maybe they become very rational and break out in a fit of rational self-preservation.  Either way, people become a bit self centered in the face of impending demise and tend to do things like rob pharmacies, walk over others to excape.

That kind of thing.

While the reports from Mexico are mixed - in some parts of Mexico city, life is going on as normal, in other parts people are wearing face masks and disinfecting everything they come in contact with -  it provides a small window into the world of the contagious disease and the reaction to it.

I think that we need to be told - in advance - what the strategy should be in the case of a particularly bad outbreak of a very virulent strain of a contagious agent such as the flu. Who will be vaccinated? Where should we go? Who will lead the emergency?

100 people have died of this influenza virus strain (we think it is a mixture of a human, bird and swine virus), so there is no real panic yet.  However, with world human populations expanding massively and overcrowding becoming a real issue in many parts of the world, then we can expect to see more and more of this kind of local epidemic and if one of the strains proves to be globally successful in spreading, then Ireland won’t get away from it without some kind of action.