Swine Flu in US & Mexico Could End Up In Pandemic
Swine flu is back in the news again, but do you really know what swine flu is? How is it different from any other flu? According to the Centers for Diseases Control:
Swine Influenza (swine flu) is a respiratory disease of pigs caused by type A influenza virus that regularly causes outbreaks of influenza in pigs. Swine flu viruses cause high levels of illness and low death rates in pigs. Swine influenza viruses may circulate among swine throughout the year, but most outbreaks occur during the late fall and winter months similar to outbreaks in humans. The classical swine flu virus (an influenza type A H1N1 virus) was first isolated from a pig in 1930.
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Swine flu viruses do not normally infect humans. However, sporadic human infections with swine flu have occurred. Most commonly, these cases occur in persons with direct exposure to pigs (e.g. children near pigs at a fair or workers in the swine industry). In addition, there have been documented cases of one person spreading swine flu to others. For example, an outbreak of apparent swine flu infection in pigs in Wisconsin in 1988 resulted in multiple human infections, and, although no community outbreak resulted, there was antibody evidence of virus transmission from the patient to health care workers who had close contact with the patient.
CNN reports today that 68 people have died from swine flu in Mexico. 8 people have been confirmed to have swine flu in the US; two were confirmed in California and two in Texas.
According to CNN, the World Health organization claims that it could become a pandemic. Who knew?
UPDATE: According to Reuters, New York officials are testing for what made quite a few students ill and swine flu is suspected.
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April 25, 2009 at 12:26 pm
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Swine Flu in US & Mexico Could End Up In Pandemic | Health @ U Want 2 Know .Info
April 25, 2009 at 12:55 pm
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Swine Flu in US & Mexico Could End Up In Pandemic
April 25, 2009 at 1:15 pm
I heard Sanjay Gupta this morning say that the spread of this flu is particularly troublesome because, altho’ there is history of human-to-human contagion, it is only possible with close contact. The cases in CA and TX have no connection, so it means those infected were near someone else who was infected, as yet an unidentified person.
Dr. Gupta was reporting after being in contact with the CDC.
I have not been able to confirm it, but there has been speculation (brief remark by a CNN anchor this AM) that there are cases in NYC: again, I cannot find any definitive source for that claim.
Reply: Thanks, I was just in the process of updating the post with the Reuters alert above. There is also a news conference on right now. It is a bit of a concern because these reports seem to be unrelated, but we’ll have to see. Buy some Purell!!!
skyewriter
April 25, 2009 at 2:55 pm
wow, how did this spread all the way to NYC so fast? That reminds me, I think now would be a good time to increase my daily dosage of Vitamin C and any other kind of immune system booster I can find
Nomad
April 26, 2009 at 1:42 am