EATING healthy, drinking plenty of water, and exercising are the best ways to help prepare yourself for any potential coronavirus pandemic.
That’s the advice from a Fermanagh pharmacist, who also recommended developing good habits now in using hand sanitiser and taking a good multivitamin or immune-boosting herbal supplement such as echinacea.
Paul Hughes of Hughes Pharmacy in Enniskillen said while the virus was not currently in the area there was “a lot of panic” locally.
“There are an awful lot of people looking for masks, and an awful lot of people looking for hand sanitiser gel,” said Mr Hughes, pictured below, who said his business was facing the same shortages being seen across the country.
“We did have some hand sanitiser, but it’s gone. We’ve been told now we might have some next week, but even with that we wanted to order a lot and they have only let us order something like 30 bottles.
“You can get some masks, but they are not surgical masks. You can get what they call dust masks, use for painting and so on, but there is no protection in those.”
Mr Hughes pointed out masks provided “limited” protection, however, and were only beneficial if you already had the virus and wanted to help stop it spreading.
For now, he said it was important for people to simply look after their general health.
“At the moment nobody has to do anything, although it’s good practice to use the hand sanitiser, if you can get it,” he said. “The most important thing is a healthy lifestyle, eating and drinking properly and exercise.”
Urging people to follow the official public health guidelines regarding self-isolating if you have returned from an affected area and are symptomatic, Mr Hughes said if anyone was showing symptoms they should simply take paracetamol and drink lots of water.
“Contact your GP and wait for your GP to give you whatever the current advice is,” he added. “The advice could be changing from day to day.”
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