A/H1N1 Swine Flu

[Mischa]

Climate Change was yesterday - now it's islamism!
Islamism was yesterday - now it's financial crisis!
Financial crisis was yesterday - now it's swine flu!

A friend of mine, a virologist, keeps telling, that the danger of a pandemia is growing and growing (he wasn't referring to this actual terrible epedimia in Mexico and fortunately up to now less severe in the US) - these must be confusing times for conspiracy theorists.

The time to produce remedies industrially is about three months, the time to spread a virus world-wide is just a couple of days. Pure hysteria? Are there any arrangements in your country to prevent a spreading?

So what do you think?

[ ] React immediately, close airports, warn the population. Better a paranoid clown than a dead know-it-all.

[ ] The situation in the US shows, that the virus could be stemmed easily.

[ ] Let's wait. This is just hype.

[ ] Ignore it, the financial crisis is exciting enough.

[ ] Buy stocks of Hoffmann La-Roche. Now.

[ ] Technically we're just a regular monoculture, darwinism sucks.

I'm very scared of news like this to be honest. I have the very other opinion about the press coverage so far, I don't think at all, it's all about hype.

Opinions?

[micrologus]

And before the swine flu there was the Avian influenza or bird flu. Do you remember? People got scared too then

[haydnguy]

I don't know what the mass media on t.v. has been saying because I don't watch it but I think the actual action taken by the governments so far has been reasonable.

Basically, they are telling people in the U.S. the basic stuff. Wash your hands, cover your mouth when you sneeze, etc. Also, they are communicating among countries. Pretty reasonable stuff at this stage, I'd say.

[Florestan]

I think the best thing to do is not to read newspapers. They are having a huge panic about this, yet the WHO is advising people planning to travel to Mexico not to change their plans. So there is clearly (at this point) no serious immediate danger to the rest of the world or to travellers.

Of course, this could change in the next few days. It could also be brought under control.

There are worrying aspects, such as the fact that young, healthy people are at risk, but we have a far better understanding of epidemiology than in the past, plus antivirals, plus, soon, no doubt, vaccines, that it is pointless to raise the spectre of historic pandemics. There have been other, recent outbreaks that have quickly been brought under control and I am quite confident that this one will be as well.

*takes temperature*

[Florestan]

Originally Posted by SchubertGuy

Basically, they are telling people in the U.S. the basic stuff. Wash your hands, cover your mouth when you sneeze, etc.

That's just good manners.

[Philidor]

I'm not clear about why it attacks healthy young adults? I can understand it carrying off the old and the sick but why healthy adults age 20-40? The 1918 pandemic did the same. It seems their immune systems go into overload but it's a mystery (to me) why this should happen.

It's got an amazing genetic makeup - only eight genes but a mix of human, avian and pig. So it's OK to keep pigs and chickens at the bottom of the garden but you really shouldn't let them in the house...

[Florestan]

Originally Posted by Philidor

It's got an amazing genetic makeup - only eight genes but a mix of human, avian and pig.

You can see why the papers are having a field day. It's a science fiction horror story.

[Philidor]

The World Health Organisation's emergency committee raised the pandemic threat level for swine flu last night after the death toll at its centre in Mexico surged to nearly 150, the number of cases in the US doubled and the first infections were confirmed in Britain.

The WHO committee said the increased threat level, from phase three to phase four (out of a possible six), recognised the crisis has taken a significant step toward pandemic influenza, but that did not mean a pandemic was inevitable. Nonetheless, it said, the virus had spread so far that "containment is not a feasible operation" and the international response should be to try to limit its transmission and treat those who were affected.

Source

The WHO pandemic alert system

In Israel, where there is one suspected case, the deputy health minister, Yakov Litzman, said the disease will not be known as swine flu, because religious Jews do not eat pork. "We will call it Mexico flu. We won't call it swine flu," he said.

[Philidor]

Originally Posted by Philidor

I'm not clear about why it attacks healthy young adults?

I read that the same happened in the 1918 pandemic - it carried off healthy young adults - and the cause was probably a "cytokine storm"

A cytokine storm is a potentially fatal immune reaction consisting of a positive feedback loop between cytokines and immune cells, with highly elevated levels of various cytokines...

It is believed that cytokine storms were responsible for many of the deaths during the 1918 influenza pandemic, which killed a disproportionate number of young adults. In this case, a healthy immune system may have been a liability rather than an asset.

Source

So you're assassinated by your own immune system.

[micrologus]

There is a case now in Israel and 3 in New Zealand.

The symptoms are less serious in the other countries that they are in Mexico.
Until now no one died of the swine flu outside Mexio.