Deadly Swine Flu Outbreak

[sweetwater]

1976 "Swine Flue" PSAs
As far as it all goes, I appreciate the info, but I wish the media would let me decide whether to panic or not.

[lookout123]

MF. half of the people have backed out of our mexico trip for memorial day weekend. damn flu.

[Pie]

My mom's verging on insanity again. (If you know her, and I know someone on this board does, please keep this post to yourself. Please.) She's visiting us, and has heard some advance chatter that "OMG, the WHO is about to declare a stage-5 pandemic! I gotta leave RIGHT THIS MINUTE and get back to Arizona!!!"

1. Maybe your "sources" are wrong.
2. If it is a pandemic, it might blow over in a week or two. Chill out, hang out.
3. If it's ZOMG THE END OF THE WORLD, wouldn't you rather be with your daughter and son-in-law, your only relatives in this godforsaken hemisphere?

I can't take much more of her panic. She's bipolar to begin with and has a true love of panic and pathos.

[dar512]

Originally Posted by Pie

and has a true love of panic and pathos.

And you want to deprive her of this golden opportunity? What kind of daughter are you?

j/k

Just remind her that Arizona is much closer to Mexico. Although then she might never leave.

[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by lookout123

MF. half of the people have backed out of our mexico trip for memorial day weekend. damn flu.

The three cruise ships that depart Tampa for Cozumel and Cancun are reportedly pretty empty during what should be a busy tourist season. I can't imagine how much this must suck for those places that rely on tourist money so much -- all of Mexico has to be pretty miserable right now.

An interesting update on the deaths of young, healthy people by swine flu that has had a lot of people concerned:

The name "cytokine storm" basically describes an over-reaction of a healthy immune system, that causes the body to attack itself. It can be triggered by many things, including viruses, although it's not common for human influenza A virus strains to cause it. Researchers suspect the cytokine storm effect played a roll in the 1918 flu pandemic, and may account for why that flu killed so many young adults, when normally, flu kills people with weak or underdeveloped immune systems: The very young, the old, the sick.
Based on the ages of many of the people dying in Mexico, there's been a lot of concern that the H1N1 swine flu virus is also killing via a cytokine storm effect, with the implication that this flu virus will be as deadly as the 1918 version. But, according to Andrew Pekosz, Ph.D, associate professor of microbiology and immunology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, it doesn't look like H1N1 swine flu is causing cytokine storms in its victims.

"The most pressing concern with swine H1N1 is not its ability to cause more severe disease, it is its ability to infect large numbers of humans because we don't possess any immunity to this particular novel virus strain. With respect to Mexico, I don't know...nor does anyone as far as I can tell...how many mild disease cases can be attributed to swine H1N1. I suspect there are a lot, in which case the number of deaths (as a percentage of total number of infected people) would be comparable to what we see with seasonal flu. I have no doubt that people have died of respiratory disease in Mexico, but I think we need much more information about how many total cases there are before we can say how virulent the virus is."

In other words, unless information gathering later tells us otherwise, you probably don't need to worry about cytokine storm with this flu virus.

And, of course, some of the theories as to why this thing puts people in the hospital or grave south of the border while stateside requires chicken soup and a mug of foul-tasting Theraflu includes:

It's also possible that Mexico City's air pollution sharpened the course of cases there.

There it is! That five bucks is as good as in my pocket. Gimme gimme!

[Bullitt]

The government of Mexico City just submitted a request for 5 million 4oz bottles of alcohol based instant hand sanitizer from the company a relative of mine works for. That's way more than they have stocked in the warehouse, and they don't know quite yet how long it would take to ramp up manufacturing to fill that order as soon as possible. That's over 156,000 gallons of Purell product.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Bullitt

The government of Mexico City just submitted a request for 5 million 4oz bottles of alcohol based instant hand sanitizer from the company a relative of mine works for. That's way more than they have stocked in the warehouse, and they don't know quite yet how long it would take to ramp up manufacturing to fill that order as soon as possible. That's over 156,000 gallons of Purell product.

I say we block the export on the principle that Mexico thinks we are the source of their problems.

[ZenGum]

Where it all came from:

[Crimson Ghost]

Shit.

Beat me by an hour.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Oink

[DucksNuts]

3 suspected cases in a town an hour from here.

[capnhowdy]

23 Month old child dies from swine flu in Texas town.

This link has some interesting stuff.

[TheMercenary]

Human Infections with Swine Influenza A Virus:
On April 17, 2009, CDC and the California Department of Public Health determined that two cases of febrile respiratory illness occurring in children who reside in adjacent counties in southern California were caused by infection with a swine influenza A (H1N1) virus. On April 22, CDC confirmed an additional three cases of swine influenza among residents of the two counties, two adults and one adolescent. All case-patients had symptoms of ILI. Additional testing at CDC identified swine influenza A (H1N1). All five had self-limited ILI and have recovered; one required hospitalization. Two additional cases were identified from Texas and confirmed as swine influenza at CDC on April 23.

Of the five case-patients with swine influenza A (H1N1) infection from California, two are a father and daughter and other than the father-daughter, the five case-patients have no known epidemiologic link or contact with pigs. The two new case-patients from Texas are schoolmates and an epidemiologic investigation is currently underway.

The viruses from all seven cases are closely related genetically and contain a unique combination of gene segments that have not been reported in the United States or elsewhere. Viruses from 6 cases are all resistant to amantadine and rimantidine and sensitive to zanamivir and oseltamivir, and sensitivity testing is underway for the remaining virus.

Vaccination with seasonal influenza vaccine containing human influenza A (H1N1) would not be expected to provide protection against swine influenza A (H1N1) viruses.

Additional information on swine influenza is available at http://www.cdc.gov/flu/swine/index.htm

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/

[monster]

bacon's revenge

[Nirvana]