Sunday, April 26, 2009
Got Flu?
If you traveled to Mexico or Texas or California recently and you feel crappy, flu symptoms you mite want to get yourself checked out. This is because the Swine Flu has spread around in Mexico, Texas, California, Kansas, New York, and now Canada. Canada confirmed Six cases in two provinces, two in the western province of British Columbia and four in the Atlantic province of Nova Scotia. Swine Flu has killed as many as 81 and sickened possibly 1,300 more in Mexico. It first spread outside Mexico to Texas and California, where there have been at least eight reported nonfatal cases. Yesterday, two new cases were reported in Kansas, and there was a suspected outbreak in New York City which was confirmed today Sunday 26th. Most of Mexico's dead have been young, healthy adults, and none were over 60 or under 3 years old, this is a cause for alarm because this shows how deadly this flu could potentially be. The new Swine Flu strain contains gene sequences from North American and Eurasian swine flu viruses, North American bird flu, and North American human flu according to the CDC. Cases of the Swine Flu popping up across the North American continent has caused the WHO, World Health Organization, to call a meeting of specialists to decide what steps should be taken to contain the virus. WHO is also considering a recommendation for a declaration of an international public health emergency, which could have major implications on travel and trade. It could also raise its "pandemic alert level," currently at level three. It is the first time the committee has been called upon since it was created two years ago to handle disease outbreaks. This new flu has the WHO worried because it resembles the pandemic influenza, like the 1918 Spanish flu and the 1957 and 1968 pandemics often strike young, healthy people the hardest. The communication that is happening with this crisis is a good early out reach to the public by having the press present stories about the flu and the WHO, CDC, and NY state setting up informational websites and a 24 hour hotline for questions about the flu. The CDC also has a section on actions people can take to stay healthy. This Shows a active participation from the CDC and WHO with handling the possible outbreak and crisis.
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It seems that this flu is no joke (as im eating a pork chop). It was interesting to know when I did some reasearch on this that the last case of the Swine flu was in 1976 when 5 soldiers got sick, leaving one dead. They are taking up the right precautions because border patrol along Mexico has increased signifigantly since this scare. Strangely enough, from what I've heard is that although there have been many U.S people infected, no deaths have occured in U.S. The only deaths I've heard about have been 20 or so in Mexico. Hopefully the media and PR people continue to have good communications with the public, because like we found out after reading case study 1 Cover ups are not ever good....Good blog!
ReplyDeleteIm still ganna eat pork also because we raise them on are farm and its all fresh. I think that them huge confinments barns filled with animals seems to always create new deseases. It will be interesting to see how bad this flu gets. Hopefully they can get it under control so it doesnt spread every where saying all it takes is a person talking to catch it. Might have to start wearing a mask LOL.
ReplyDeleteThis swine flu keeps getting worse, just the other day a 22 month old baby passed away in Texas. I heard an interesting piece on the news the other night, and that is that so far there have been on pigs that have tested positive for swine flu. I also heard that they are trying to get people to stop calling it swine flu because of this. I am going to continue to eat pork since this news has come out.
ReplyDeleteSwine flu the next bird flu, SARS, AIDs, Oh scratch that last one. Yes it seems we are under attack again by another one of these "serious" life threatening, pandemic, diseases. I wonder when this one will disapate and go away I'll give it two weeks and then we won't here about it again. However it does sound serious, but with our health care compared to Mexicos I think we'll be all right. "I don't feel so good, I'll have two more pig tacos siniarita. Viva la Mexico"
ReplyDeleteThe Swine Flu, or H1/N1 Type A, is said to be a relatively new disease. I heard on the radio that at the moment there is no way to stop the disease. They were asking that people who think they might have it to take precautions. Some of these were to not take public transport and to cover their mouths when coughing or sneezing. It is good that they are getting the word out about this so that people can try to protect themselves.
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