Follow our blogs feed 
Hello guest, welcome to PJ online
gateway to the world of pharmacy and medicines
Flawed assumptions
By Kevin Frost
One of the trite sayings of our age: Never assume, because assume makes an ass out of u and me; is infuriatingly useless.
There's certain assumptions you have to make. You have to assume that the sun will rise tomorrow morning, that the next delivery van from the wholesaler will deliver those urgent antibiotics you ordered and that if you do your job to the best of your ability, you won't be given a suspended sentence for one mistake.
Similarly in the current will-it-won't-it influenza situation, there's certain assumptions that have been made in the planning which have proved to be wrong.
We assumed it would have been a human-avian mix from SE Asia, so that's where the surveillance was. No-one expected Mexico as the country of origin.
We assumed that it wouldn't reach Britain until there was a global pandemic, whereas it's spread much quicker.
But perhaps most annoyingly, we assumed it would cause severe illness rather than just a second influenza season. Whether it's going to be a case of pandemic sniffles rather than pandemic influenza, we'll have to wait and see. This is infuriating on two points - firstly there's the time and energy it has taken away from more important work. But more importantly, if we use the antiviral stockpile and the vaccine production facillities (which would have prepared seasonal influenza vaccine for this winter) now then we temporarilly lose these tools for future influenza epidemics or pandemics, until the reserves and the capacity can be rebuilt.
There's still too many unknowns for comfort.
2-5-9
There's certain assumptions you have to make. You have to assume that the sun will rise tomorrow morning, that the next delivery van from the wholesaler will deliver those urgent antibiotics you ordered and that if you do your job to the best of your ability, you won't be given a suspended sentence for one mistake.
Similarly in the current will-it-won't-it influenza situation, there's certain assumptions that have been made in the planning which have proved to be wrong.
We assumed it would have been a human-avian mix from SE Asia, so that's where the surveillance was. No-one expected Mexico as the country of origin.
We assumed that it wouldn't reach Britain until there was a global pandemic, whereas it's spread much quicker.
But perhaps most annoyingly, we assumed it would cause severe illness rather than just a second influenza season. Whether it's going to be a case of pandemic sniffles rather than pandemic influenza, we'll have to wait and see. This is infuriating on two points - firstly there's the time and energy it has taken away from more important work. But more importantly, if we use the antiviral stockpile and the vaccine production facillities (which would have prepared seasonal influenza vaccine for this winter) now then we temporarilly lose these tools for future influenza epidemics or pandemics, until the reserves and the capacity can be rebuilt.
There's still too many unknowns for comfort.
2-5-9
