Swine flu care for persons at risk

Persons ’at risk’ are those who are more likely catch a disease when in contact with the virus and/or those who may display particularly severe forms of the disease.

It is not possible to list all the rare diseases concerned but, more generally, the risk factors  enable us to identify diseases such as cystic fibrosis as chronic pulmonary disease and Duchenne muscular dystrophy as a chronic neurologic or neuromuscular disease.

Persons at risk from flu

(the list is not ranked)

• Children younger than two years old
• Pregnant women
• Residents of medium or long-stay centres
• Adults older than 65 (the frequency of the disease may be lower but forms are severe)
• Persons younger than 18 years old who require extended treatment with aspirin

Persons affected by chronic pathologies:

• chronic respiratory pathology (including asthma)
• chronic cardiac pathology (with the exception of moderate arterial hypertension)
• chronic metabolic pathology (including diabetes)
• chronic renal pathology
• chronic neurologic or neuromuscular pathology
• chronic haematologic pathology (including drepanocytosis)
• immunodeficiency (including HIV, asplenia and drug immunosuppression)
• morbid obesity

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Prevention

Stay home if possible when you are sick. Visit www.cdc.gov/h1n1 for more information. Limit contacts and use the hygiene measures described in ’Flu care: the general situation’.

Vaccination

•  Seasonal flu: it is imperative that persons at risk should be vaccinated and it is very strongly recommended for persons around them.
• Swine flu (H1N1):  the same recommendations apply.
• Pneumoc occal infection (Streptococcus pneumoniae) may be a severe or even fatal complication of flu, particularly for persons at risk. Anti-pneumoccal vaccination is therefore recommended for them.

Antivirals.

Limiting viral multiplication can prevent the onset of serious forms and so antivirals are recommended for persons at risk. As their effectiveness is closely related to the earliness of treatment, care should be taken to ensure that access to the medicine is as fast as possible when it is needed. Depending on the situation in each country (prescription necessary or not, limited deliverance, pharmacy opening hours), persons at risk and persons around them -- advised by their associations -- should ensure that this medicine can be obtained in all circumstances (viruses take no notice of weekends and national holidays).

Those around persons at risk

The protection of persons at risk begins by preventing those close to them from being infected.

Family members caring for patients with rare diseases often perform daily care operations that require close contact with the patient. It is therefore logical that the persons living with or caring for persons with an identified risk should be concerned by the same measures for the priority obtaining of vaccines, supplies of masks and treatment with antivirals to limit their viral load in case of diagnosed infection or close contact with an infected person.

For more information

• WHO - WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION
• ECDC - European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control
• European Commission Public Health
• Flu.gov - www.flu.gov

Author: François Faurisson Photos: All images © EURORDIS; except “Stay Home!” poster © CDC - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Vaccination © Lynne Featherstone