Much of the running commentary on Twitter is a reaction to news events, so when afluepidemic becomes a national news story, the number of people talking about it spikes, regardless of their own health status.
Aziz Sheikh, a professor at Edinburgh University, gives warning in a letter to the British Medical Journal that a global fluepidemic could potentially be triggered by people returning from the haj and he urges that flu vaccinations be administered routinely along with those which are already given for meningitis.