In article o.uk, Dave
Liquorice scribeth thus
On Fri, 23 Jul 2010 23:43:11 +0100, Spamlet wrote:

Malaria did used to be common in the UK

Was known as the Ague IIRC.

With so much air travel it is only a matter of time before malaria gets
back into our mossies.

Quite probably, but our climate is borderline for it. Might be a
problem down south but I'm not sure it (or the adult mozzies) can
over winter further north.

A friend who used to write some of the Rough Guides, had malaria, and
when it flared up, he had a job to convince the local hospital to
believe him:

Quite, this story is rather worrying:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10522909

The problem is it can stay low for such a long time after infection
with the parasite. All the same the repeated diagnosis of flu isn't
right, first time maybe but not second time even within a couple of
months flu just isn't that common. That should have raised a "hum,
there is something different here" flag and further questioning,
tests etc performed.



Theres the problem with "Flu like" symptoms. A friends wife phoned up
the doctors in the evening a few of years ago as she thought she had
something else in addition the aches and pains of typical Flu and was
told 2 x Paracetamol 3 times a day etc..

That following morning she got up with an extreme headache made her way
downstairs and then collapsed. Fortunately Mrs nosey neighbour across
the way had an item of their post delivered to her and just "happened"
to have a look thru a windowpane and saw her there collapsed.

They were pumping antibiotics into her on the way to hospital and that
wasn't that far away. Just lost most of her toes and a few fingers to
gangrene.

Meningitis strikes very quickly.

Almost a punch line to this sorry tale;!..

Her profession?..

A Hospital Nurse;!.......


And to add to that one of our sprogs some years ago .. they called from
school to say she was very unwell and described Headaches, stiff neck,
vomiting, aversion to light, seeming spaced out and not with it .. Told
the wife to take her to the A&E dept at the hospital right away got
there barged in front of the queue said we had a child with symptoms of
the above affliction, seen right away but a docs who said that we did
the right thing and they were about to take blood tests and then 10 mins
later she just wanted to go home and felt fine

Felt like a right chump but all in the A&E said thats fine, we did what
they would have done if it was a child of theirs!...
--
Tony Sayer