The stories are intended to get you read to the article, watch that particular bulletin or buy the newspaper apart from making people afraid...very afraid. They know, the more you are scared, the more you would stay at home and you would watch more TV news. Just to keep things in perspective, the death toll in India with TB is estimated to be over one thousand, every day. The number of diarrhea deaths per day is again estimated to be a thousand. Not to forget hundreds of Indians who die everyday due to starvation.

 

If the TV anchor says, "One thousand Indians die of TB today. We have a special report on that" you will basically switch it off, but if the same anchor says "Breaking news!! 2 more people die of swine flu in India today" you are hooked. The reason for this is simple. Human beings are always afraid of the unknown and fascinated by something new. In India it goes to a whole new level, because we are simple and emotional and get easily taken in by the hype…remember the milk-drinking Ganesha?

 

The Indian media knows that, they know the easiest way to get you to watch them, and for them to get money from advertisers, is by scaring you. So, the swine flu is hyped to the extent that it is the second coming of blood cancer – "you get it; you die" with an added "it is spreading so fast, you will surely get it." There is only a minuscule reportage of the fact that it is perfectly curable.

 

The Indian media is not alone in this regard. The american media too started off with a big swine flu hype and a big scare. Now it is estimated that a million people in America have got swine flu since the outbreak and at least 500 have died. However, the media coverage has died down. Reason – it was pointed out that 36000 Americans died last year of ordinary flu. This number received wide media coverage in America and the people started putting the numbers in perspective. They also realised that swine flu is just what the name indicated…it is just a form of flu and is as curable as ordinary flu. Some people who have other health conditions and who didn’t take the medicines appropriately may die – just like those who die of ordinary flu.

 

There are no clear numbers in India about the number of people who die every year of ordinary flu. But you can easily imagine it to be at least as much as USA (if not more), simple based on the fact that we have three times the population of USA, most people do not take flu vaccine and many people in India are so poor that they can not afford the medicines.

 

It doesn’t mean that you have to be careless about swine flu. The one difference between swine flu and ordinary flu is that there is no vaccination available yet for swine flu and we do not have natural immunity to the disease. Remember the word I used is vaccination and not cure. A lot of people get confused and think there is no cure for swine flu and the media is too happy to let the confusion linger.

 

So be careful, don’t postpone a visit to a doctor for flu symptoms and incorporate clean habits like regular use of hand-soap. However, stop being afraid, continue with your normal life and switch off the TV the next time they scream about deaths due to swine-flu just as we would when you hear them say  "100 people died in Bangalore today of diarrhoea."