In India, there are still more people dying from Road Traffic accidents, Tuberculosis, etc. than Swine Flu everyday.
Hans Rosling has come up with an interesting 'News/Death Ratio' which checks the News/death Ratio.
The News/Death ratio (as of 27-08-2009) was 591 for Swine Flu; 0.1 for Tuberculosis; and 274000 for Michael Jackson.
Fortunately, there is more continuing media interest in the death of a 'single Michael Jackson' than 'Swine Flu' and 'Tuberculosis'. And, Michael Jackson died only once!
During the 13 days,From April 24th up to May 6th, WHO has confirmed that 25 countries were affected by the Swine flu and 31 persons died from Swine flu.
WHO data indicates that about 60 000 persons died from TB during the same period. By a rough comparison with the number of news reports found by Google news search, Hans Rosling calculates a News/Death ratio and issue an alert for a media hype on Swine flu and a neglect of tuberculosis.
13 days Swine flu Tuberculosis
Death (www.who.int) 31 63066
News (news.google.com) 48961 3978
News/Death ratio 8176 0.1
References:
