Last week swine flu virus got through Australia's famously tight customs and went off to school. But a month ago, in Geneva, the first days of swine flu literally sent the World Health Organisation (WHO) to their panic stations.
For a while everything felt precarious, as images of Mexicans in masks appeared in the media. It was as if the 'fiction' in science fiction had been annihilated. The possibilities were nightmarish.
Swine flu is an unknown quantity. The language surrounding it is highly specialised. Globalisation makes it hit home faster, and sections of the media work hard to transform fear into cold hard cash. It's easy to start thinking survivalist kind of thoughts.
On 27 April, when the panic was at its height, a strange thing happened near the headquarters of WHO. Vials of swine flu, travelling on a domestic train from Lausanne to Geneva, first rattled, then exploded. Sixty domestic passengers were checked for swine flu. Two, caught in the crossfire of the exploding vials, were slightly injured.
The explosion wasn't caused by swine flu, but by the inept packing of the dry ice surrounding the vials. The incident provided light relief but, seen from a global level, it raised greater questions about who is navigating the unknown waters of swine flu and how.
In Geneva, member states are debating questions of equity surrounding the manufacture of a swine flu vaccine. In the race to produce a vaccine, developing countries are being asked to hand over strains of the flu to WHO, who will give them to pharmaceutical companies for the purpose of manufacturing a vaccine.
It has been acknowledged that, in the event of a pandemic, there is currently no capacity for everyone to receive the vaccine. So who decides who will be left out? And will the price be affordable?
Indonesia is one of the countries refusing to hand over their bacteria because, as they point out, in the event of a global pandemic, they will be forced to purchase the vaccines they helped create, at a price they cannot afford, benefiting the pharmaceutical companies and the economy of the United States.
They have a point. What's in it for them except a fuzzy feeling?
This raises questions about international intellectual property rights and highlights that the issues that surround swine flu are far from purely scientific. They are riddled with age old questions of equity, and that annoying