Pandemic? What pandemic?

So it wasn't the end of civilisation as we know it. After weeks of hysterical headlines, the swine flu pandemic has turned out to be a damp squib with the number of cases creeping rather than rocketing upwards and the number of deaths confirmed as being due to the infection falling rather than rising.

But it didn't take long for the conspiracy theories to surface. The top 10 suspects are: drug manufacturers, TV networks, anti-immigration campaigners, animal rights activists trying to end the meat trade, Al Quaeda, George Bush, surgical mask manufacturers, illegal drug cartels trying to overthrow the Mexican army, the US labour unions and doctors.

Theories range from a ruse by Western governments to draw attention away from the global economic crisis to multinational companies trying to dig themselves out of a financial hole. But trying to prove to the lunatic fringe that the virus was not manufactured in a laboratory and deliberately released is about as easy as trying to convince them that crop circles are not made by aliens or that a deity probably wouldn't use a slice of toast to reveal his (or her) countenance.

If I were a conspiracy theorist, I might incline towards the belief that the outbreak was a dry run for the influenza pandemic that, the experts say, is bound to happen. Releasing a relatively harmless virus to test international preparedness for a rapid global spread is not such a bad idea - a little like the emergency services practising for a major natural disaster.

The fact is that currently in the UK more people are suffering from measles than from swine flu - an outbreak with potentially more damaging consequences. Children can die or be seriously and permanently impaired by a disease that is preventable. The fact that the number of vaccinated children has fallen to dangerously low levels is due to those interested in promoting their own theories at the expense of worried parents and their vulnerable offspring.

Even though those theories have now been utterly disproved, the damage has been done. Almost two decades ago the WHO set a deadline for the eradication of measles by 2010 - a goal that is now out of reach.

Instead of panicking about swine flu, the public would do better to panic about measles, because at least there is a vaccine for that. It's just a shame that there isn't a vaccine to prevent future pandemics of ill-informed media hype.