Tamiflu

With swine flu on the loose in the American community in Egypt, everyone we know has been stocking up on Tamiflu just in case. Everyone except us, that is...

Basically, if you are unlucky enough to get swine flu (now renamed H1N1) in Egypt, you get the pleasure of being quarantined in the Fever Hospital. That is apparently the only place authorised to hand out Tamiflu. And if this virus gets out of hand in Egypt, I'm not sure there's any guarantee we would get any.

Not that we hadn't been trying to get our hands on some anyway. We thought maybe the embassy could help us. But they said they will not be giving drugs to the community. I called and emailed my health insurance company, and they were beyond unhelpful.

But slowly, we noticed all of our friends -- both foreign and Egyptian -- had their own personal stocks of Tamiflu. And we started to get a little nervous. H1N1 turned up in a nursery school several of Maya's friends go to. And in the building where someone I know works. Many of those who have been diagnosed with the virus recently returned from the US, and it is "home leave" season right now, so...

We started calling pharmacies. They told us they didn't have any. Every pharmacy we called. But somehow our friends were still managing to get some. They were all going in person. Strange, I know. But then yesterday we decided to try it out. And guess what. It worked at the first pharmacy we went to. We now have three adult doses and have put a deposit down for a child dose that we should get in a couple days.

Our plan now if we get flu symptoms: Call a doctor outside of Egypt by phone, and then medicate if needed.