Swine Flu Epidemic

M

mariorulezman

Baptized in Flames
For the past week or so ive been logging onto yahoo to check my mail and it seems that every time yahoo loads theres something about this new swine flu
I read a little bit about its a flu that is actually composed of genetic material from humans birds and pigs. I dont know why they call it swine flu but ok

So far what ive been reading about on it is that it could be the next flu to kill millions of people worldwide like the flu epidemics that happen many years before

heres a link to todays news article about it

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090427/hl_time/08599189402900

what do you think will happen?
will we all die or will it blow over?
 
it will just blow over.... modern medicine is good enough to keep us alive. that's what i belive
 
Will we all die? lol I think you're being a little dramatic. It's an epidemic, sure. But I think we'll figure out a few preventative measures soon. As far as I've heard, it's only spread between 5 states so far.
 
Listen Guys,I know how much I sound like a "Holy Roller",but for all the Christians out there who study the Bible,or people of a different faith(Which I respect their beliefs.)Jesus already gave us the lowdown on this in the book of "Matthew".

MR.KAZ
 
Does it smell like bacon? :) Seriously, this looks nuts! Sounds like it's caused by the environment. Large cases coming from Mexico City right? Sounds like a trend in outbreak. Anyone remember the strawberry issues from Mexico? That's what comes to mind when I read this article.
 
Well from what we are learning in Molecular genetics, virus diseases that are able to go from animal to human are actually quite rare, and when they do end up getting carried over it is very difficult to stop them from replicating and spreading. ANd being that this is a new superstrain that consists of swine, avian, and two other influenza strains, there is not really any readily available vaccine developed to deal with a potential outbreak.

Of course, normal preventive measuers can be taken...what makes it even more complicated is that several states are still in normal flu season, so it may be hard to distinguish between the normal flu and this one. There are is no way to contain the case and it is bound to grow and spread more. If you dont use an airport or manage to touch people and such then you can be safe.


We should be fortunate that we dont have the more potent form that is present in mexico though. Though it would be interesitng if this had the same effect on the world as the Bubonic plague or that massive flu outbreak in the early 1900's...
 
It's making it's way over here even.

Serious though, the world suffers from a new pandemic and epidemic (depending on where you are) each year it seems... Just keep yourself in check, be wary of odd signs that may be linked in some way to a known disease.

Oh, and stay away from birds, pigs, reptiles, fish, apes, chimps, mammals, certain soils and humans as much as you possibly can.
 
>.>...but thats no fun...
and heres the next article they put out about it.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090428/ap_on_go_ot/us_med_swine_flu_worst_case

just if you want to read it
 
Interesting:

A full-scale pandemic — if it ever comes — could be expected to claim the lives of about 2 percent of those infected, about 2 million Americans.

The government estimates that a pandemic like the 1918 Spanish flu would sicken 90 million Americans, or about 30 percent of the population. Of those, nearly 10 million would have to be admitted to a hospital, and nearly 1.5 million would need intensive care. About 750,000 would need the help of mechanical ventilators to keep breathing.
Click to expand...

However, um that article lost all credibility with this line

People would avoid movie theaters and rent DVDs instead.
Click to expand...
 
To anyone who thought my last post was joke and offended by it I aplogiize it wasn't a joke though. I tend panic over these sorts of things ever since I had severe case of west nile virus a few years ago be very fearful of this sort of thing.The thing about my case of west nile virus was the doctor didn't even bother to run the test until I had been sick well over a week even though he is no longer my physician his lax attitude has cuased me to have certain amount of distrust toward doctors ever since. I'm sure I will freak out a few more times as it spreads. It didn't really help that one of 5 states it's already appeared in was Ohio.
 
This will probably be like SARS and Bird Flu. Nothing will ever really come of it, and a few hundred people will probably die. Still, this one is a lot closer to home. There are cases less than 50 miles from me.
 
My mom works at a hospital and according to her, they're making isolation rooms and having the employees wear gas masks... I think it'll blow over...
 
Oh my gosh, I guess only certain parts of Mexico City are on alert, news reporters didnt have their masks on in some parts of the city.

Ive been searching for an image of the H1N1 (SIV, swine flu) under TEM and I finally found it. I hope for more images of it. In my Bioinformatics classes here we are exploring the genenome of the current swine flu virus, totally cool, NCBI made it available swiftly!
 
Right... over here they don't let us bring samples of diseases like that to study in class... in fact... they outlawd studying many fluids about 15 years back... wish they didn't. To observe something like this would certainly beat just watching some others do it via a video. :-\
 
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