Bugs

Have had the cold/s for about 2 weeks now. A virus, maybe an echovirus, is experiencing great glee and possibly bliss while reproducing in my respiratory tract, giving me a head full of cotton wool and mucus. We've come to a compromise where it's happy and I am not unhappy. It knows that if it makes me just sick enough to cough, splutter, sneeze and dribble while maintaining normal activities, it has a better chance of infecting some other bugger. Happy, clever virus!

The big wan had a DPT (diptheria, pertussis, ?tetanus) immunisation at school last week, and was carrying on like a jessie about his sore arm. He knows nothing. In my young day in Glasgow, a rite of passage was the BCG (tuberculosis) inoculation delivered to long lines of 14 yr old schoolkids. Within a few days, spectacular pustular, crusty scabs appeared simultaneously on the left arms of the whole cohort. Except Lisa, who hoped for a career as a model and wished to stay unscarred. The boys, and some of the tough girls, went around punching each other in the arm for kicks over the next few weeks. I learn that BCG is no longer routinely given, though TB rates in the UK are rising.

An immunisation against human papilloma virus (HPV), the infectious agent of both genital warts and cervical dysplasia, is now privately available. The NHS does not yet provide this, though it could produce significant savings in stirrup-time, speculums, cytological services, STI clinic overloads, invasive colposcopic treatments and lives lost to cervical cancer. Developed within BigPharma, once the rival product from GSK comes on the market the price will come down, boys and girls. Maybe even to a level of 'cost-effectiveness' when kiddos can line up for their jags on the NHS at school, with mine as first in the queue.