Pat Holscher wrote:A graph of deaths due to the Spanish flue in Kansas.
http://virus.stanford.edu/uda/flustat.html
Impressive.
I hope you feel better. The flu is miserable.John M wrote:Was chatting to a friend in the pub today...before I read this thread. Flu came up in the conversation as I have just had mine...which should make me safe from 65% of current strains of flu!.
He is a mine of accurate and useful information and said that the flu epidemic at the end of WWI was caused by Chinese coolies being brought over to help clear the battlefields and presumably help with the wounded..etc They brought the virus over with them. Whether he is correct I dont know.
John.M
It actually makes sense that most deaths have occurred in Mexico. New flu variants have very distinct points of origin. Once they breakout, they hammer that location. That's why it's so strongly suspected that Camp Funston was the point of origin for the 1918 strain, or the virulent version of the 18 strain (there's some reason to believe that a less virulent variant of the 18 strain circulated for some time prior to the disease evolving to the really nasty version, and the 18 strain still circulates as a mild version today). Given as the new strain is really new, and as humans don't carry around an immunity to it, it'll pound the point of origin at first. It's an open question on whether or not it'll be a widespread problem, although New York has already determined that it won't be, and that for most people it's no worse than any other flu.bisley45 wrote:
So far, Arizona has only one or two confirmed swine flu cases, with a few others suspected. Does it strike anyone as odd that such a preponderance of the deaths are occurring in Mexico? Granted, most of the cases are there, but there are so few deaths worldwide form this virus that it seems within the parameters for any normal flu season.
wkambic wrote:Just got back from a short jaunt West and had a couple of days to be at "loose ends" in San Diego while my wife attended a medical conference. I was watching CNN on Monday and it would be best described as "All Swine Flu, All The Time." And mostly talking heads with little or no really valuable information.
She briefed me on a presentation, ad hoc, by a panel of infectious disease specialists. Their take was that this really is a potentially dangerous disease. That said, it's no longer 1918 and the developed world is well capable of handling a significant problem as long as it's handled by the pros and not by the pols. Regarding death rates, the panel would not say a whole lot but the "buzz" among most of the MDs was that the relatively high death rates in Mexico (if they are, in fact, high death rates and not just a lot of deaths from a lot of infections) is probably more due to generally poor health and nutrition than anything else. Of course you can't say that on CNN as it might insult the Government of Mexico.
To infer that Americans in fact are, generally, healthy would also contradict the "Sicko" type "common wisdom" spread by advocates of ever increasing government control of our lives.
In short, this is not a disease to be "toyed with" but hysteria (mass pig slaughter, border closings, etc.) will not help and may cause other, equally severe problems.
1918 flue genome reveals it to be quite close to avian flu, but with some differences. The theory is that it started off as an avian flu and mutated into one transmittable to humans.HawkHero wrote:Pat;
That is why Avian Flu is so scary. Your immune system will basically kill you. For most strains of flu it's not the flu that kills you, but the secondary infections (pneumonia being the most common).
My girlfriend treated the single case of confirmed swine flu in Nevada and mentioned that it's not really that bad. The problem in Mexico is that many prescription drugs are available over the counter. People get sick and just run to the store to get antibiotics. Self diagnosing isn't always accurate. Ask anyone who works in healthcare about the patients who come in and say, "Webmd said my symptoms seem to be disease x."
One of the explanations for why this is getting so much attention is the presence of a bit of Avian flu within swine flu.
I really see this outbreak as a chance for WHO to test their system for what will occur when Avian flu becomes airborne and goes human-to-human. The US Government's plan is not pretty. If you are a US citizen outside of the US and hear anything about Avian flu breaking out, get on the first flight back, othwerwise you won't be getting back in the country.
--Brian
Well put. There is a difference between "concern" and "panic" that a lot of people seem unable to discern.wkambic wrote:In short, this is not a disease to be "toyed with" but hysteria (mass pig slaughter, border closings, etc.) will not help and may cause other, equally severe problems.
I've been putting together notes on the Swine Flu outbreak for my classes (I teach medical geography, in intro courses, and as a separate elective), and I thought I might share some general conclusions about what seems to be happening.
First, the virus isn't entirely new. It is a mixture of elements from several known viruses (the H1N1 designator indicates two elements in the viral composition- "bird flu" is H5N1). What is new is the combination, and the fact it has not been seen in humans before, so we have no natural immunity and all our current vaccines would be ineffective. Nor is it carried by pigs- Egypt is apparently slaughtering its entire pig population, which is insane- nor can it be transmitted by eating pork.
What makes this virus special is that the "swine" component in its structure gives it a characteristic known only in the 1918 pandemic- and understood only in the last decade, when we were able to reconstruct the genome of the 1918 virus. It is most dangerous to the most healthy. The virus responds to the body's immune defenses with a cascade effect proportional to the attack which it- the virus- undergoes from the immune system. The stronger the immune response, the more virulent the virus becomes. A healthy immune response triggers an intense viral assault. That's why the 1918 flu was noted for its mortality rate among 18-34 year olds, especially fit young soldiers.
The pattern of the 1918 pandemic was an initial wave of mild flu, followed several months later by increasingly wider and deadlier outbreaks. This probably resulted from the virus becoming increasingly adapted to human-human transmission and becoming genetically more efficient in its mode of operation, as it encountered healthier immune systems. We may be seeing the same thing here, with the initial outbreaks outside of Mexico. If it follows the 1918 pattern, we can expect the real problem in the fall.
We have two effective drugs, oseltamivir [Tamiflu] and zanamivir [Relenza], but there is no telling how long they may be so. The Chinese doped up all their flocks with an earlier anti-viral, adamantane, when bird flu broke out- millions of doses- and this new strain apparently is now immune to that older drug. A vaccine will probably take at least 4-5 months to develop and produce, although a crash program might cut that down a bit, so it may be a race between vaccine production and the next wave, if the disease follows the 1918 pattern. At least we have the technology and the know-how, which gives us more than a fighting chance. BTW, the vaccine production program, which halved the time from ten years ago, and has put into place a potential massive public health response to a truly dangerous outbreak, is largely the product of forethought by the Bush Administration, based on expectations of bird flu. Credit where credit is due.
And don't believe any numbers you have seen or hear. Every cough is now a crisis- I've had a sinus cold the last two weeks, with some cough, and you should see the reaction- and there are only two labs in North America that can do the definitive verification- the CDC in the US and one in Canada- and they are backed up out the door with submitted samples. The current death toll of about 160 in Mexico is also less than informative, even if accurate, which it probably is. Nothing I have seen tells us how many people in Mexico actually had the disease, only that about 2000 went to hospitals, not all of whom had H1N1. Tens of thousands could have treated it at home, gone to traditional healers, or had cases so mild they simply worked through them. Until we get that broader number, any case fatality rates or mortality percentages are meaningless.
Hope this is useful to some of you.
Henry
