CM Magazine: Just the Flu?

________________ CM . . . . Volume VII Number 3 . . . . October 6, 2000

Just the Flu?

Bruno Carriere (Director). Eric Michel (Producer).
Montreal, PQ: National Film Board of Canada, 1999.
23 min., 53 sec., VHS, $39.95.
Order Number: C9197 195.

Subject Headings:
Influenza-Video recording.
Epidemics-History-Video recording.

Grades 5 and up / Ages 10 and up.

Review by Betsy Fraser.

*** /4

excerpt:

With no solution in sight, all we can do is hope that the next flu season won't be the one that throws us in a health crisis on a global scale.

This video is a short version culled from the film Influenza. In a brief time, it manages to explain the background and history of the deadly type "A" flu virus as well as to explain the distinguishing characteristics between the flu and a cold. The video gives a comprehensive picture of how the three types of human flu and the 13 types that appear in ducks can be mixed and mutated in pigs, ready to reappear in another deadly breakout. Much of the video is spent detailing the dangers, mutations and transport of past flu outbreaks, from the 1918 Spanish Flu to the 1968 Hong Kong Flu to the present danger, Wuhan Flu, which appeared in the Southern Hemisphere in 1996.
The video does not try to push for extra research dollars, nor is it strictly educational about prevention. It is simply an educational tool and a warning about viruses that have taken millions of lives in various forms. While the video would have been more useful in classes if it had one definite purpose, it is still useful as a general tool for upper elementary classes studying health or the effects of mass transit and overpopulation in spreading disease.

Recommended.

Betsy Fraser is a librarian with Calgary Public Library.

To comment on this title or this review, send mail to cm@umanitoba.ca.

Published by
The Manitoba Library Association
ISSN 1201-9364

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR THIS ISSUE - October 6, 2000.