H1N1, aka American flu, aka swine flu.... essentially a story of a deer and the headlamps

In the dark of night, when a deer is suddenly caught in the glare of headlamps of an oncoming truck, he (or she) is suddenly paralyzed with indecision. Not knowing what the headlamps represent, he (or she) is suddenly unable to decide whether to stay and fight, flee forward, or flee backwards. Paralysis of indecision. Until of course, truck meets deer.

There is more than a bit of this in the H1N1 story isn't it? Is it serious or not? Is it cause for worry or not? Is it a pandemic or not? Is the sky falling? Are the headlamps approaching? Friend or foe?

Leaders cannot be paralyzed by indecision. One cannot go to war dithering about whether it is a skirmish, battle or war, undecided about the enemy's advance.

The more this drags out, the more it sadly reflects the lack of leadership at the WHO, at a time when leadership is sorely required.

Meanwhile Singapore's tally has gone up to 11 cases, all of whom are well.

While our attention has been distracted by H1N1, aka American flu, aka swine flu... some may be assured to know that all's well with respect to the other potentially problematic infections in Singapore. Dengue has been behaving itself. Chikugunya has been predictably making its home in Singapore at a very low level of endemicity. Hand foot and mouth disease is down way low, maybe because of the increased level of hygiene because of the H1N1 paranoia.

But unbeknownst to many, we are having a small spike of malaria.