Searching for flu hotline!

COMMENTARY

I have allergies. I have hay fever and my hypersensitive nose does not take too kindly to dust or other airborne particles.

The health problem may not sound so disastrous but the affliction means that I sneeze. A lot. Certain strong scents, like that of air-refresher spray, can send me into a fit of non-stop sneezing, one right after another, as if I were doing a comical act. Sometimes, I have to sneeze up to 10-15 times in a row before the nasal nerves stop itching.

Non-stop sneezing. Can you imagine a more horrible habit to have at this time of flu scare?

These days, the sound of my sneezing or the sight of my carrying a wad of tissue to jab at my nose time and again seems enough to clear the immediate space around me. I admit it makes me feel a bit off, as if I were ridden with germs, but I totally understand the reaction. I would be scared of myself, too.

Last week, I was sneezing as usual when I felt people going quiet around me. It might be my own imagination but I couldn't help feeling some heat as I believed some people were eyeing me suspiciously.

The problem was, the heat of shame seemed to stay with me and stewed on as I got home.

I could feel heat radiating from my body. I turned the air-con up to 26 degrees C and I still felt cold. I turned it up to 27 degrees C... still cold.

I didn't have a thermometer at home (I have two now, one the traditional mercury type; the other a digital one) so I asked my brother to touch my arm to check if I felt warm to him.

"You feel like a stove," he said.

Needless to say, I panicked.

It didn't matter that no one in my family or at my workplace had the flu. Since I am allergic and have problems with my respiratory system as well as negative reactions to some medicines already, I could be a candidate for complications. If I had the flu, I would rather know it sooner rather later.

I didn't remember what the hotline number for flu information was (should that be my problem or that of the Ministry of Public Health?) so I fired up my notebook and went online in search of it.

To my misfortune, I was directed to the ministry's English-language website. I expected a big, red button that screamed Influenza A (H1N1) here! All that you ever need to know! But I was greeted by a very unexciting white-and-green page, with the Hot Issue tab featuring Avian Flu.

I thought I would see a four-digit hotline number or any numbers at all that I could call for information about the disease right up front. In the face of a pandemic, that is the kind of information that should be placed so prominently that nobody could miss it. Instead, I found mind-numbing rows of faded blue boxes imprinted with tiny fonts dominating almost the whole page, which appears very much like a letter from a bureaucratic agency informing you of, say, a change in garbage fees.

The first tab in the first row said: No. 5 Outbreaks of Influenza A (H1N1)

(Bureau of Emerging Infectious Diseases). The list went down numerically to No. 1 Outbreaks of Influenza A (H1N1) (Bureau of Emerging Infectious Diseases) on the last tab.

The second row had a white background but showed the same list of tab from No. 5 to No. 1. (Really, who would know what information these tabs contain or for that matter what difference is No. 5 from No. 1?) interspersed with "Guideline for Tabletop Exercise on Influenza" and "Fight over drug patents heats up".

I clicked No. 5 and I was presented with another hyperlink. I persevered and clicked on that link. It led me to a very stern-looking, two-page letter that began by recounting the flu pandemic situation since May 11. (I was only searching for phone numbers!)

Anyway, I found two numbers listed discreetly, almost as an afterthought, at the end of the document in the for-more-information section. Of the two, I picked the latter one which was stated as the Public Health Ministry's Hotline. My call went unanswered until the line went automatically dead.

I rang the other, listed as that of Department of Disease Control's Operation Centre. It was picked up on the first ring and I got useful advice from a calm voice telling me not to panic as I had no other symptoms of the disease, to take paracetamol and see if the fever subsided in three days. If not, then I should go see a doctor. I was lucky I didn't have any temperature when I got myself checked the next day.

I wonder, though, whether any tourist or expat in Thailand, who may need more information about the flu, might not develop a fever in his or her attempt to find it from the Public Health Ministry's website!

Atiya Achakulwisut is Editorial Pages Editor, Bangkok Post.