How to prevent swine flu? Follow the precautions and wisdom of prevention of other infectious diseases. Effective, regular handwashing may be the most important preventative step. Use warm water and soap, scrub with soap for 30 seconds and be sure to get beneath the fingernails and down to the wrists. Overall good hygiene goes hand in hand with this specific practice. Most individuals who contract swine flu do so by touching a surface contaminated with the virus and then touching their eyes, nose, or mouth.

Even those who have already contracted the swine flu should follow good hygiene practices. This, coupled with staying home from work and canceling other activities, will facilitate both recovery from the disease as well as containment so that it does not spread to others. Cold and flu common sense applies here: keep coughs and sneezes covered, use and throw away tissues, clean and disinfect surfaces.

Individuals wearing surgical masks (sometimes creatively decorated) have been commonplace in media coverage of the outbreak. These masks are also common in images from the worst known influenza pandemic in human history, the 1918 Spanish Flu. There is no scientific evidence that surgical masks prevent swine flu infection. Such masks were designed for one-time use under ideal, sterile conditions (such as an operating room); wearing such a mask in a populated city during day-to-day activities quickly contaminates them.

How to prevent swine flu is also a question considered by the world at large. Containment measures at borders and airports have been put into place by some nations, though most experts agree that it is too late for these to have any effect. More useful may be a vaccine. Several Western nations have begun human trials of swine flu vaccine, with hopes that large scale vaccinations may begin in autumn, 2009. Further complicating the global question of how to prevent swine flu is the “second wave” phenomenon. Influenza pandemics are know to sometimes infect with an outbreak of mild illness (as most cases of swine flu have been) follow about six months later with a mutated and far more virulent (severe) outbreak. This was the case in 1918. It is not known if a vaccine developed now for the present form of swine flu would be effective against such a second wave.