I read a book called 'The Coming Plague' when I was in medical school. It was fascinating. It formed a picture of the world in my mind as a bubbling soup of seething micro-organisms waiting for the right circumstances to break out, to come forth and multiply

A timely follow up to 'The Two Faces of Swine Flu' is 'Critical Care Services and 2009 H1N1 Influenza in Australia and New Zealand'. This 'hot off the press' paper by the ANZIC Influenza Investigators has just been published online in the NEJM.

Despite the cessation of ‘pig kissing frolicks‘ it looks as though the WHO will eventually declare that 2009 H1N1 influenza A (‘swine flu’) has reached pandemic proportions (phase 6). What does this mean? A phase 6 influenza pandemic means that…

Swine Flu for Dummies, is it really a public health emergency of international concern

The sun is making more frequent cameos in our part of the world, suggesting summer may be on its way. Another, but less obvious, indicator of the change in seasons is the gradual decline in patients with swine flu (H1N1 09 influenza) needing treatment in our intensive care units.