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Swine pandemic flu

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aonomus

Sun Apr 26 2009, 10:45AM

Registered Member #1497 Joined: Thu May 22 2008, 05:24AM
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Posts: 801

I'm hoping that the flu cases in France, the UK, and New Zealand are simply flu and not this nasty variant. We'll just have to wait for lab testing, I don't want to stray too far off topic but if this has already jumped continents then it will be harder to contain since the long-haul airplane trips will expose people fairly well. More carriers who might not exhibit symptoms till later on into their infection ends up spreading even more...

big5824

Sun Apr 26 2009, 11:20AM

Registered Member #1687 Joined: Tue Sept 09 2008, 08:47PM
Location: UK, Darlington
Posts: 240

the UK one has been cleared

aonomus

Sun Apr 26 2009, 03:56PM

Registered Member #1497 Joined: Thu May 22 2008, 05:24AM
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Posts: 801

CDC confirms NYC, students in New Zealand also confirmed H1N1. :(

During a briefing from the White House today, Janet Napolitano announced that they are releasing 25% of their Tamiflu/Relenza stock, prioritized to affected states. Canada is not advising for antivirals to be used at this time.

Further on into the briefing (and also in a simultaneous Canadian briefing), current indications are that symptoms are mild, and that people that have remained in isolation are becoming better. Efforts remain to keeping infected individuals isolated in their homes, increasing passive surveillance and physicians taking swabs for all flu-like cases to help monitor the situation.

Mads Barnkob

Mon Apr 27 2009, 10:58AM

Registered Member #1403 Joined: Tue Mar 18 2008, 06:05PM
Location: Denmark, Odense C
Posts: 1968

Ammunition... its a flu, not a zombie invasion :D

GluD

Mon Apr 27 2009, 12:08PM

Registered Member #1221 Joined: Wed Jan 09 2008, 06:17PM
Location: Odense, Denmark
Posts: 196

Aperantly its spread to Denmark now too.

/panic

Dave Marshall

Mon Apr 27 2009, 01:32PM

Registered Member #16 Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 02:22PM
Location: New Wilmington, PA
Posts: 554

Harry, to answer your question regarding the history of this strain: Influenza goes through a process called reassortment, where various strains can 'swap genes'. This happens all the time, and usually this just results in previously immune individuals (vaccine or prior infection) getting sick again. It's the same process that can result in a strain making the jump from animals to humans.

In this case, an old strain of swine flu which had made the jump to humans already got together in a powwow with avian and human strains, and came up with a whole new game. Because the resulting strain was so unique, humans have little or no natural immunity to it at this point.

-Dave

Coherent

Mon Apr 27 2009, 10:59PM

Registered Member #1886 Joined: Sun Dec 28 2008, 02:55AM
Location:
Posts: 73

MadsKaizer wrote ...

Ammunition... its a flu, not a zombie invasion :D

It's for a doomsday end of the world scenario where you might need to fight off a gang of people trying to kill you and steal your food/supplies

Hon1nbo

Mon Apr 27 2009, 11:07PM

Registered Member #902 Joined: Sun Jul 15 2007, 08:17PM
Location: North Texas
Posts: 1040

apparently there are some in the Dallas area here in Texas... but it might have been Fort Worth. and at my school the first thing I see at the receptionist desk is a folder labeled "swine flu"... my guess is that it is just procedure for if it happens.. my school is so small that everyone would know if someone got it.

Bored Chemist

Tue Apr 28 2009, 05:52AM

Registered Member #193 Joined: Fri Feb 17 2006, 07:04AM
Location: sheffield
Posts: 1022

Coherent wrote ...

MadsKaizer wrote ...

Ammunition... its a flu, not a zombie invasion :D

It's for a doomsday end of the world scenario where you might need to fight off a gang of people trying to kill you and steal your food/supplies

Yes, but what if it's an outbreak of flu?

aonomus

Tue Apr 28 2009, 02:40PM

Registered Member #1497 Joined: Thu May 22 2008, 05:24AM
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Posts: 801

This idle banter is getting off topic...

The WHO has declared phase 4 as of yesterday which means sustained human to human transmission. Closing borders as containment won't do any good, so all efforts are going into mitigation mode now.

As for the disease itself, there are indications beyond preliminary that it won't be as lethal as avian influenza, and that no current evidence supports hypersensitivity with cytokine storms as the current major cause of death, however since Mexico has the most progression through the disease (with the most number of human to human transmissions, thus time for the virus to re-assort again and become more lethal) and because Mexico lacks the medical infrastructure to do high levels of medical surveillance, it may be worse there than better.

Another major fear is not if but when the virus reaches Asian countries such as China or India. They have high population densities without the medical infrastructure to support or contain anything, and if Mexico-like mortality rates become the norm, then China and India will suffer.

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