IT’S sad that more than the A(H1N1) pandemic itself, the worse thing that’s happening is the misinformation pandemic about swine flu.

It’s good that the swine flu panic has died down a bit. No schools are now being shut down. I don’t remember any school being shut down for a whole week because of dengue hemorrhagic fever—a more potentially fatal infection than A(H1N1), but in the last three weeks I’ve lost count of schools and establishments—including the House of pork (barrel)—being closed down temporarily due to a single reported case of A(H1N1) infection.

More time spent in malls

What’s ironic, says Doctor Tony Leachon – a regent of the Philippine College of Physicians (PCP)—is that when their schools closed down, the kids spent more time in the malls where their chances of catching the virus is just as high as in their respective schools.

“Controlling disease requires first addressing ignorance and misinformation,” Dr. Leachon says.

Swine flu, for example, is not an airborne infection; it is a droplet infection spread by coughing or sneezing of those who have an active infection. Closing down schools to do massive disinfection won’t solve the problem. Rather than closing down the schools, advises Dr. Leachon, they could have just isolated students with suspected infection, monitored them closely either at home or in the hospital, until the infection was resolved.

Congress reported the first A(H1N1)-related death in someone who appeared to have a compromised immune system due to her heart ailment. Whether the cause of death was really the infection or heart failure, the media didn’t give us any information on it. Granting that the death was really due to swine flu, it still does not warrant the kind of panic we have now, as reflected by the decision to close down Congress for massive disinfection. Again to put in perspective, since the start of the year, more than 400 have already died of Dengue fever; and yet, we don’t seem to be as worried as we are of Dengue, as we are of A(H1N1).

Although, vigilance is really important in a pandemic situation, life and living do not have to stop because everyone is all gripped with exaggerated fear, turning a mole to a mountain with the thinking that 800 Filipinos out of 90 million now have swine flu; so we’re going to get it soon, too.

World Health Organization Director General, Margaret Chan, hit the nail on the head when she said during the 62nd World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland recently that many countries were nervous and anxious, and in wishing to show that they were doing something, they overreacted. That’s exactly what’s happening in the country right now. And overreacting interrupts the country’s education, legislation, economy and life in general.

Hopes to achieve

Preventing this type of misinformed panic is exactly what Health Education Reform Order (Hero) hopes to achieve as one of its major objectives. The moving figure behind this is Dr. Leachon and his committee in the PCP. Hero was signed by President Gloria Macapagal-Aroyo into an executive order (EO 595) in 2006 enjoining all government agencies to collaborate with the PCP and the Philippine Medical Association in conducting, among other things, public education—with emphasis on how to prevent common infections and ailments—especially among schoolchildren.

Since 2005, Hero medical volunteers have been going around the country with their public education campaigns. Sadly though, their scope of areas covered is limited because of the lack of funding. If it were not so, perhaps they could have gone to more schools and many more would have been empowered with the information they disseminate. In times when we have panic situations like this, the Hero volunteers can be tapped to help eradicate the misinformation which is a lot worse than the infection itself.

It’s also good to note that many of our congressmen have also acknowledged the importance of programs such as Hero. Representative Arthur Pingoy, who is the author of the Comprehensive Healthcare Reform Law, hopes to address the nation’s health problems with the CHRL to augment the Cheap Medicines Law and the Hero programs. Referring to our health problems, he said in one of his speeches: “The stakes for inaction are simply too high to ignore for our generation and for generations to come.”

The stakes are indeed too high for a relatively unhealthy nation like ours. Let collaborative endeavors between the government and the private sector like Hero fill in the big gaps in our health programs.