Swine Flu: Who's Making the Bucks?

While swine flu is still spreading, the mass hysteria and the whining of the media seems to be settling. People seem to have come to terms with the following facts:

1.       1)It is an infection caused by a variant (H1N1) of the Influenza A virus, that regularly causes seasonal flu in India and elsewhere

2.       2)It spreads from one person to another through droplets of saliva shed while speaking, sneazing or coughing, or by touching contaminated surfaces.

3.       3)The symptoms of this infection are similar to those of ordinary flu: running nose, cough, fever, body aches, and rarely breathlessness. You can’t distinguish the 2 by symptoms alone.

4.       4)The risk to life with either of the 2 infections is very small; around 99.9 % of those infected recover on their own, even without any special medicines like Tamiflu. Local figures show that of 700 people tested at SGPGI, 80 had swine flu, almost all of whomhave recoverd and none have died.

Who then benefited from the mass hysteria that was created a month or 2 ago?

First, it was the media ofcourse. They had something new to blare, and the more the viewers could be frightened, the viewing of their channels and the TRP went up.

Second, the mask manufacturers and retail shops selling them. Mask-makers vyed with one another to get their brands endorsed as the exclusive preventive mantra. Retailers hoarded and sold masks at exorbitant prices while gulible well-meaning citizen coughed up large amounts to buy them.

Crowded and unprepared government hospitals and unaccustomed CMOs had their fleeting moments of glory when the rich and the powerful  knocked (or banged) on their doors for Swine flu tests or doses of the “magic drug” Tamiflu.

 Private hospitals and labs, which were anxiously waiting and parleying with the government, have now started beaming from ear to ear.  Panic is driving the rich to their doors for the test priced at Rs 10,000/- . “What is the value of money before life?”  is what they will tell their rich clients before fleecing them.

The pharmaceutical cmpanies probably got a raw deal; their Tamiflu was not allowed to be sold at retail shops. Their stock prices did not rocket this time the way they did during the last Avian flu epidemic. Why was the government so unkind to only them? 

And those who benefited most were companies manufacturing the diagnostic kits for swine flu. Two USA based companies, Invitrogen and Allied Biosystems, quietly made huge profits as panickstricken governments of developing countries mopped up their kits. In fact, USA with 16% of its GDP going to health, did not undertake such widespread testing for swine flu as we did with our meagre 2%. Our recent national frenzy with swine flu is helping companies come out of the economic recession.

As published in HT City ( Hindustan Times) dated 30 august , 2009.