Hong Kong Respiratory Medicine

獲獎者: 孫悅君同學, Suen Yuet Kwan, Dorothy (6S20)
Last fall, while every F.5 student was burning the mid-night oil and flipping through the pages of textbooks to prepare the upcoming HKCEE, an influenza epidemic was creeping from the horizon.

Like most of the F.5 students, I used to have tutorial lessons on Sundays. But when I walked in the designated classroom, it wasn’t the usually one I expected. It was no longer quiet; students who were sitting in there no longer kept flipping the notes or doing any kind of revision. The room was madly filled with tussive sound; students were all masked and heads down in their arms, as if they were all deadly exhausted. I didn’t see it as an omen that something bad was going to happen and it would get ugly pretty fast.

I could hardly join the class the coming Sunday. When I woke up that day my throat was protesting. It was so dry, like a fire was burning white hot down my throat. I tried to keep down a big glass of water right away, but it did no help. Still, I made it at last. I went back to the tutorial school and was shocked to discover that, there were only a few of us and were all masked and deadly exhausted like some of us did on the very last week. By the time I had finished my lesson, I was hardly myself. I could sense my temperature was a bit hotter than usual. I was a little bit dizzy too – though I could barely tell you how I literally feel when my head was spinning so crazily.

I didn’t bother to see a doctor. Because, doctor means needles. Besides, I thought I was strong and healthy enough to be rid of it.

And I assumed way too much.

I couldn’t go back to school the next day. I was having a fever. Every part of me groaned in pain. I went straight to the doctor to find that the clinic was already filled with patients. I thought while I waited, ‘what is it that has made many of us so awful? It doesn’t seem to be some common cold we regularly encounter. Whatever kind of virus it is, it spreads away at a scaring speed.’

Those were unsolved questions in my mind until I’d talked to the doctor. He says it was influenza. But my case was not those serious one. With a round the clock treatment and proper care I should be healed quickly. He also said that an influenza epidemic was likely to occur in schools, especially in kindergarten.
The following day, when I went back to school, I found that most of the friends who have been sitting around me were either absent or looking really ill. I didn’t even say hi to them. The first thing I did was to confirm if they were infected by influenza. They all nodded. Later I was told that there were a large number of absences in my form – though, the number wasn’t large enough to announce school day suspension. An influenza epidemic seemed to occur in my form.
I didn’t pay much attention in class –it’s hard to concentrate under the influence of medication –Instead I let my mind wander…

Is it always true – when it comes to the whole viruses versus human thing – that we are always in parasitism? Like the tapeworm lives inside the intestine of some mammals and be benefited from the host, in which, who is harmed instead.

Could we both live peacefully together? Not in parasitism, but in commensalism, or even in mutualism? Like the crabs and barnacles? Or like the crabs and sea anemones?

To the best of my knowledge, some of the influenza viruses have a very strong vitality.

A sliced of lung tissue was extracted from a patient who died from serious influenza infection almost 90 years ago in a U.S military hospital. It was discovered that the piece of lung tissue was seething with influenza virus, which still holds traces of genes.

Is there no hope then?

No, I don’t believe it. There must be a way to halt this devastating scene.

Perhaps, some day, a ‘super vaccine’ will be produced, which could make us all immune to any kinds of fatal influenza viruses. When Tamiflu is no longer effective in killing the influenza viruses, the ‘super vaccine’ will do the job.

Maybe, some time in the future, our devoting scientists could extract the particular part of gene that carries the DNA of the strong vitality of the virus and implant it to us, human. That way influenza may not be much a threat then.

Impossible as it seems. Still I will keep my dream alive!

We human are rather fragile when facing upon those destructive viruses. But we don’t easily give in. We don’t simply sit there and wait for the viruses to bombard us. When facing those kinds of killers, we are not polite, we are proactive.

So mark my words. We should end this devastating scene that is generated by the influenza viruses.