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[churchill]

Breaking News - BULLETIN -- 23-MONTH OLD BABY DIES IN TEXAS, FIRST CONFIRMED SWINE FLU FATALITY OUTSIDE MEXICO.

[churchill]

Swine flu: Expert Dr John McCauley says virus is 'very unusual'
The new variant of H1N1 virus that seems to have been circulating in Mexico and now has spread to USA and perhaps New Zealand is a very unusual virus.

"The worrying aspect of this virus is that it seems quite able to spread between humans and that the initial cases spreading from pigs may have been some time ago. "

http://www.telegraph...ry-unusual.html

[churchill]

Similar from Independant

Steve Connor: Virus may mutate to pose deadlier threat

Pigs are known to be able to incubate both human and avian flu viruses, as well as swine flu, and this multiple infection in one animal can lead to "triple reassortment" whereby a completely novel influenza virus emerges that can then sweep through the human population as pandemic flu, Professor Hay said.

"The pig is readily infected by both human viruses and avian viruses because within their respiratory tract they have receptors – protein molecules – to which viruses bind for both the human viruses and the avian viruses," he said.

"Humans in general do not catch bird viruses. These avian viruses cannot readily infect us in general because of this big species barrier between birds and humans. But the barrier is a lot lower both for human going to pig and from pig going to human and it's because the pig has these receptors for the human virus."

If swine herds in Mexico were the origin of the new H1N1 strain, which seems increasingly likely, then it probably jumped the species barrier from pigs into humans when farm workers or locals living near to pig farms came into close physical contact with either pigs or farm equipment contaminated with the virus – unlike avian flu, however, swine flu is not transmitted through faeces.

"As with humans, flu in pigs is something that replicates in the respiratory tract and is transmitted by respiratory secretions. But you can get infected by flu both by aerosol transmission – by coughing and sneezing – or from surfaces that become contaminated," Professor Hay said.

Now that the H1N1 virus has spread within the human population it can continue to evolve into forms that can be more easily transmitted between people, as well as into forms that become more dangerous over time.

http://www.independe...at-1675808.html

[churchill]

churchill, on 2009-04-29 17:38:56, said:

Breaking News - BULLETIN -- 23-MONTH OLD BABY DIES IN TEXAS, FIRST CONFIRMED SWINE FLU FATALITY OUTSIDE MEXICO.

Report: Toddler is first U.S. swine flu death
23-month-old child dies in Texas, government official tells Reuters

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30471035/

[churchill]

and from the guardian - Is it all over hyped ?

Swine flu? A panic stoked in order to posture and spendDespite the hysteria, the risk to Britons' health is tiny - but that news won't sell papers or drugs, or justify the WHO's budget
Comments (133)

http://www.guardian....exico-uk-media1

[churchill]

U.K. PM Brown says a 12-year-old girl from Torbay and two adults from Birmingham and London have been diagnosed with swine flu.

[churchill]

"Vigilance, and not alarm, is needed, with readiness to self-isolate oneself at home if an influenza-like illness develops. Such home isolation, combined with other measures of social distancing, are most likely to stop the spread of swine influenza.

"These actions could buy the necessary time to boost stockpiles of antivirals and develop a vaccine against this virus, which will inevitably take months rather than weeks to prepare and distribute."

From The Lancet -  http://www.physorg.c...s160141132.html

[churchill]

BULLETIN -- WHO CALLS EMERGENCY MEETING, MAY DECLARE PANDEMIC EMERGENCY TODAY.

[churchill]

The increase in affordable travel for large sectors of the world's populations means that infectious disease can quickly move around the globe. An outbreak of influenza caused by a new virus in any region of the world could very quickly spread and become a full-blown pandemic.

"As a consequence, the continued threat highlights the need for countries to be prepared for pandemic influenza. Control of an influenza pandemic will be through a combination of simple personal health measures, such as social distancing and the use of non-therapeutic interventions, and more importantly the use of vaccination and antiviral medicines.

Once a pandemic starts there may be some delay in the availability of an appropriate vaccine and during this period antiviral therapy will be the most effective way to limit infection and reduce the impact of the emerging pandemic.

There are two main classes of antiviral compounds used against influenza: the M2 ion channel inhibitors, developed in the 1960s, and the newly developed sialidase inhibitors. The sialidase inhibitors are preferred over the older compounds because their use has been thought to generate resistant viruses only at a low frequency. In light of recent observations we may need to reassess this assumption. "

Preparing for the wrong flu strain isn't such a waste

http://www.publicser...ry.asp?id=11784

[churchill]

I think this is terrible news and an overreaction .

BULLETIN -- EGYPT ORDERS TO SLAUGHTER ALL PIGS IN THE COUNTRY.

[churchill]

Egypt says it has ordered the immediate slaughter of all pigs in the country, up to 400,000, due to swine flu fears - state news agency.

It should be noted that there is no evidence that swine flu actually spreads from swine to human. The move is seen to prevent panic.

So kill everything even though they are not the problem - so people don't panic !! crazy

Killing Pigs now will not stop the virus from spreading .

[churchill]

churchill, on 2009-04-29 19:47:39, said:

Egypt says it has ordered the immediate slaughter of all pigs in the country, up to 400,000, due to swine flu fears - state news agency.

It should be noted that there is no evidence that swine flu actually spreads from swine to human. The move is seen to prevent panic.

So kill everything even though they are not the problem - so people don't panic !! crazy

Killing Pigs now will not stop the virus from spreading .

Perhaps it has more to do with religion ?

What happens if a muslim catches the pig flu??

Only joking !

[churchill]

churchill, on 2009-04-29 18:06:32, said:

churchill, on 2009-04-29 17:38:56, said:

Breaking News - BULLETIN -- 23-MONTH OLD BABY DIES IN TEXAS, FIRST CONFIRMED SWINE FLU FATALITY OUTSIDE MEXICO.

Report: Toddler is first U.S. swine flu death
23-month-old child dies in Texas, government official tells Reuters

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30471035/

Reuters: Houston health official says the child who died of swine flu in Texas was a Mexican who traveled to the US for medical treatment.

[churchill]

churchill, on 2009-04-29 18:47:46, said:

BULLETIN -- WHO CALLS EMERGENCY MEETING, MAY DECLARE PANDEMIC EMERGENCY TODAY.

The meeting is expected to take place later on Wednesday or early Thursday, said Paul Garwood, WHO's spokesperson for emergencies and humanitarian affairs.

"This meeting would be to review [the] latest information, including information coming out of an ongoing meeting of a group of scientists from around the world on the H1N1 situation," Garwood told BNO News. The spokesman also said that the committee will discuss the current pandemic alert level, which is currently at level 4.

In the recent days, there have been calls from officials to not use the word swine flu as it is misleading. Swine flu, or H1N1, does not infect people via contact with pigs, as the name could suggest. On Wednesday, the Egyptian government decided to cull all pigs in the country, a move which is widely seen as an attempt to stop people from panicking.

[churchill]

Expert analysis: Mexican swine flu – the story so far


"Out of the blue, a novel influenza virus has emerged in Mexico. The virus seems to have been born from the combination of at least two pig viruses, that themselves carried gene segments that originated in viruses of other species such as birds or humans. The combination of elements from three species is called "triple reassortment".

This new virus, although dubbed "swine flu", has not been identified from pigs in Mexico, nor is it caught directly from pigs, but has the ability to infect and transmit efficiently between humans. This led the World Health Organization to increase its pandemic alert to level 4.

So far there seem to have been around 159 fatalities among perhaps 2000 cases in Mexico, although only a small number of these have been confirmed in the laboratory as influenza infections. Although this suggests a scary fatality rate of around 10%, there has so far been just one death outside of Mexico – of a 23-month-old child in Texas. The "case fatality" of the virus is not yet known.

This is the key point that scientists are now investigating. Travellers returning to their home countries after acquiring the virus in Mexico have experienced mild influenza-like illness. What might explain this apparent discrepancy in disease outcome?

A matter of numbers
One simple answer is that there have been many more mild cases in Mexico than counted so far and that the true case fatality rate is more like 1 to 2%. This would be akin to that seen during previous pandemics such as the 1957 (H2N2) Asian influenza or the 1968 (H3N2) Hong Kong flu. Even with the 1918 Spanish influenza, which killed tens of millions, the case fatality rate is estimated at between only 2.5 and 5%.

In other words, as cases outside of Mexico increase, we may expect a small number of fatalities from what is otherwise a rather mild virus. Increased epidemiology – for example, monitoring the spread of the virus and the strain type in the affected areas in Mexico – will shed light on this issue.

Another possibility is that the Mexican fatal cases have been due to co-infections with other pathogens that together lead to a worse outcome, or that somehow the indigenous population of Mexico is genetically predisposed to fare badly with this particular influenza strain. There is no evidence to support either of these possibilities, but then so far we have few clinical details of any of the cases."

http://www.newscient...ory-so-far.html

[Jingthing]

Quote

A matter of numbers
One simple answer is that there have been many more mild cases in Mexico than counted so far and that the true case fatality rate is more like 1 to 2%. This would be akin to that seen during previous pandemics such as the 1957 (H2N2) Asian influenza or the 1968 (H3N2) Hong Kong flu. Even with the 1918 Spanish influenza, which killed tens of millions, the case fatality rate is estimated at between only 2.5 and 5%.

I think this is very probable, that the fatality rate is much less than people fear. However, that would be small comfort if it spreads rapidly around the world and infects massively, because even a 1 percent fatality rate of billions of people is very bad. The good news even in a bad case scenario is that with modern knowledge (for example, we know washing your hands helps prevent this) and treatment methods, we probably have the power to slow this down and prepare a vaccine that will protect people from later waves. As this is airborne and the cat is out of the pinata, I don't see how this can be stopped from spreading a lot more though. BTW, save your money on face masks and buy hand soap and hand washing gels instead.

Edited by Jingthing, 2009-04-29 21:10:14.

[churchill]

What does H1N1 mean?

http://www.sciscoop....-h1n1-mean.html

[RickBradford]

A senior US health official has just said that this virus is so mild that people who think they may be infected should not even bother to call their 'health-care provider', which I assume is US-speak for 'doctor'. It's just 'flu, bit of a sniffle, bit of lethargy, gone in a couple of days. Take 2 aspirin and have a lie-down.

But thanks to the media fearmongering beat-up, governments worldwide are dusting off their thermal scanners, advising against travel, depressing market sentiment, giving airtime to vacuous 'sharing and caring' politicians to pontificate.

"... the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance..." - Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933.

[Jingthing]

No, no, no! This is serious because it is a totally new virus and may kill young healthy people in numbers you don't normally see in a normal flu season, especially if it mutates over time and adapts to attacking humans more efficiently which is its purpose. Of course panic is a bad thing, but so is denial and ignorance.

Edited by Jingthing, 2009-04-29 21:38:09.

[Loaded]

Jingthing, on 2009-04-29 21:27:12, said:

No, no, no! This is serious because it is a totally new virus and may kill young healthy people in numbers you don't normally see in a normal flu season, especially if it mutates over time and adapts to attacking humans more efficiently which is its purpose. Of course panic is a bad thing, but so is denial and ignorance.

There are always new viruses and they will always mutate - it's called nature. There's currently a lot of flu in Chiang Mai. It's the same every year and Thais will tell you it's because of the change in the weather. People, especially the already sick, old and very young, may die. It's nature; it happens. if you really want to stay safe in Thailand, stay off the roads.

[chefshane]

Free-spirit, on 2009-04-27 15:43:39, said:

It's a good time to start taking Colloidal Silver each day to keep safe. Supporting your immune system is the best prevention of not contracting such viruses.

The hippies were raving about that when I was a lad.
And it still does bugger all apart from make the alternative medicine types achieve orgasm without having to contribute to the Roche share price.

How about leaving the bullshit out of the equation, or put up some fact instead of this herbalist nonsense?

[churchill]

BULLETIN -- WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION SAYS IT IS CLOSE TO A PHASE 5 PANDEMIC.

[kurtgruen]

O.K., you have 159 suspected swine flu deaths in Mexico, with only 7 confirmed.  Then, you have one 23 month old child dead in Texas, who was brought to the US, from Mexico, for treatment.  

No deaths related to swine flu, outside of Mexico, of people who contracted the virus outside of Mexico.  In fact, outside of Mexico, the virus seems to be quite harmless, similar to a mild flu.  Numbers around the world are very small, of those, who have the virus and it seems that most, or all of them had recently travelled to Mexico.  

Yes, stay informed!  No, don't panic.  There is absolutely no reason to panic.  There is absolutely no reason to run out for flu serum or face masks, at the moment, unless you are in the immediate area of an outbreak.  

WHO just said it again...in Mexico 26 reported cases and 7 deaths.  Worldwide 114 reported cases (to WHO) and 8 death, including those in Mexico plus the baby in Texas, who was brought in for treatment from Mexico.  

I agree, that if you are in an affected area, limited or no human contact will definitely help to slow down or eventually stop the virus.  

Like our mothers always told most of us, when we grew up....cover your mouth when you are coughing, nose if you are sneezing, wash your hands often and remember that money is one of the dirtiest things to handle.  These are thinks, that most of us already do, I think, but reminding people is a good idea.  

Am I worried - No!  Should you be worried....as they say in Thailand..."UP TO YOU" ;-)

[Thai at Heart]

kurtgruen, on 2009-04-29 16:21:10, said:

O.K., you have 159 suspected swine flu deaths in Mexico, with only 7 confirmed.  Then, you have one 23 month old child dead in Texas, who was brought to the US, from Mexico, for treatment.  

No deaths related to swine flu, outside of Mexico, of people who contracted the virus outside of Mexico.  In fact, outside of Mexico, the virus seems to be quite harmless, similar to a mild flu.  Numbers around the world are very small, of those, who have the virus and it seems that most, or all of them had recently travelled to Mexico.  

Yes, stay informed!  No, don't panic.  There is absolutely no reason to panic.  There is absolutely no reason to run out for flu serum or face masks, at the moment, unless you are in the immediate area of an outbreak.  

WHO just said it again...in Mexico 26 reported cases and 7 deaths.  Worldwide 114 reported cases (to WHO) and 8 death, including those in Mexico plus the baby in Texas, who was brought in for treatment from Mexico.  

I agree, that if you are in an affected area, limited or no human contact will definitely help to slow down or eventually stop the virus.  

Like our mothers always told most of us, when we grew up....cover your mouth when you are coughing, nose if you are sneezing, wash your hands often and remember that money is one of the dirtiest things to handle.  These are thinks, that most of us already do, I think, but reminding people is a good idea.  

Am I worried - No!  Should you be worried....as they say in Thailand..."UP TO YOU" ;-)

I was listening to the BBC world service about the change to reportedly 7 deaths.  Apparently the health minister made an idiot of himself.   It is a statistical problem, because the Mexican government is going through all the samples with a new test to absolutely confirm that swine flu was the cause.  They  tested 7 at the time of the report and got 7 positive results.  In which case, if they go through the remaining 140 odd samples, and get 140 positive results, nothing changed.

Edited by Thai at Heart, 2009-04-29 22:31:59.

[kurtgruen]

BBC has just announced, that there are 91 confirmed cases in the US now, in 10 States.  That means that it has passed Mexico in confirmed cases (which has 26 confirmed by WHO)

Hmmmm....this should put the final nail of the coffin of the US Economy, because I'm pretty sure, that this will be followed up by all kinds of travel warnings from Europe, the Middle East, etc.  

Oh well, that's what happens, when their media starts fearmongering.  

It's gonna'be interesting to watch the economic consequences of all this.  

I think, we will also have a renewal of religous fanatics, who will add some more dumb sheep to their folds, scaring them with Endtime rubbish.  

Of course, the flu itself is interesting to watch.

What a wonderful time to be alive on this planet.  So many exciting things happening....Global Warming, Financial Meltdowns, possible Pandemics...and the list goes on.

Ahhhh, it's good to be alive ;-)