Swine flu 'is under control' at Arrowe Park Hospital

Jun 24 2009 by Carrie Catterall, Heswall News

HEALTH professionals say people shouldn’t worry about swine flu spreading in Wirral after two cases were identified in one week.

They spoke to calm people’s concerns on the Wirral peninsula ... as hundreds of people pass through Arrowe Park Hospital each week.

They said the two people who had contracted the disease had not come into contact with any patients.

On June 15, a man who worked in an office at the hospital tested positive for H1N1v infection – as reported in the News last week – and on June 19, a woman colleague also tested positive for the disease.

Workers who had come into contact with the pair said they were concerned about contracting swine flu and taking the infection home to their families.

But hospital bosses said it was important to continue working as normal.

An employee said: “We were told we had to stay in work, so at first we were anxious we may have also caught the disease.”

The Health Protection Agency said all people who had come into contact with both patients when they were infectious were treated with antiviral medication as a precaution.

The first patient was infection-free before returning to work and the second patient has not been in work for the past week.

A spokesman said: “No further action is necessary in their workplace.”

Even though there has been panic over the swine flu pandemic, some scientists believe it is similar to normal flu, but is just out of season.

Professor Malcolm Bennett, Director of the National Centre for Zoonosis Research at Liverpool University, said: “Swine flu does not appear to cause a disease any worse than that caused by the human strains of influenza, and so most people, if they become infected, will be no more ill than they would be with normal flu.”

There were eight new cases of the disease reported in the North West over the weekend and no new confirmed cases on Monday or Tuesday.

There are now 43 confirmed cases in the region, which is relatively low compared with other parts of England such as the West Midlands which has 1095.

Professor Bennett added: “At the University of Liverpool, we are investigating contact patterns between people and how this might influence the spread of diseases such as influenza.”