Mi amigo Joe Lauria reportero del Wall street journal vivió la siguiente aventura, tras enfermarse despues de pasar unas horas en el aeropueto de Chicago y sucumbir a la paranoia ambiental.
By JOE LAURIA
It had been 10 years since I had the flu. But over the past week, I spent four days in isolation at New York's Montefiore Medical Center after contracting a serious case.
I came down with the virus after being stuck for hours at Chicago's O'Hare Airport, which sees more than two dozen flights a day from Mexico.
Forty-eight hours later I had muscle aches, a cough, chills and a 102-degree fever. Authorities only seemed to be giving advice not to "go out." But few doctors make house calls. Last Sunday night, as my condition worsened, I couldn't reach my doctor anyway.
So I called New York City's 311 helpline seeking an answer to a simple question: Since President Obama had declared a public health emergency that very day, where could I go in New York City to be tested for the A/H1N1 virus? With several students in Queens already ill and concern growing about its spread, I assumed health authorities had a plan to make testing widely available.
The 311 operator told me to call the New York's State Health Department hotline, where I was informed to call my family doctor. With my doctor's office closed, I called an emergency room to ask whether it could test for swine flu. A harried nurse told me to call 311 and hung up. I called the state hotline back to insist on finding out whether there were any facilities for testing. I never got a straight answer, which I took as "no," there was no plan.
By the time I finally reached my doctor by phone on Monday, my left arm had lost its strength. She ordered me to the emergency room. But I first asked her to do a swab for swine flu. "No way, that's in Washington's hands," she said. The state hotline confirmed it: Only the federal government could send a team to test a suspected case.
When I arrived at Montefiore Medical Center, the hospital immediately put me into isolation after hearing my story and confirming the fever. A doctor thought he could eliminate the possibility of A/H1N1 flu by swabbing for Type A influenza, which he said included swine flu. The swab came back negative. The doctor said I didn't have swine flu.
Then, two days later, an infectious diseases doctor said it could not be ruled out that I had A/H1N1 because of the imperfection of the test on type A. But she said that by Wednesday, New York City was inundated and refused any more samples unless patients had recently been to Mexico or were in contact with known victims. Another doctor told me they specifically refused mine.
I called New York City authorities, who told me they don't need to test everyone with the A/H1N1 virus and can't. They said they test only to identify and contain areas of outbreak.
Don Weiss, director of surveillance in New York City's bureau of communicable disease, said authorities do not have the resources to test everyone. The only place in the world where testing is being done is at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, where a test had to be designed and produced for the new flu strain, he said. The CDC is working to expand capacity for testing around the country, Mr. Weiss added.
"There are probably 10,000 people with the flu in New York," he said. "We just don't have the capacity to test that. People with the flu should stay home and call their doctor."
The authorities acknowledged that the interests from a public health perspective, and that of an individual patient, differed. And that creates a public relations issue for city authorities to explain to flu patients why they don't need to be tested.
I'm recovered now, after four days of isolation and because of the hospital's excellent care. Did I have swine flu? It's something I'll never know unless I want to wait for a test to see if I developed the antibodies for it.
For now, I think I'll just let it rest.
Joe Lauria is The Wall Street Journal's United Nations correspondent.
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