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DaffyDuck
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Quote: from quack quack on 1:17 pm on April 25, 2009
Swine fever, originating from hogs in Mexico, can be transmitted to swine of the human genus.
Therein lies the problem of sharing a high percentage of DNA with swine - then again, I would be more concerned about, undoubtedly, the pending epidemic hitting Aussies and Brit tourists in Thailand first... Far higher incidence of potential carriers.
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Thai Girls : Meet Sexy Thai Girls
Posted on: 10:19 am on April 25, 2009
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Valetta
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At the moment it still seems an open question whether Mexican Swine Fever is likely to develop into a global pandemic causing millions of deaths as happened in 1918-20 with Spanish influenza.
So far swine fever may have killed about 81 people in Mexico City,and reports suggest it is is capable of rapid transmission.These are definite danger signals.
However,there have been no reported deaths in Texas,Southern California,or New York from an influenza which is very probably,but still unconfirmed,swine fever.This suggests that,at least in the USA,the influenza strain is related to an existing strain in respect of which the population has developed a degree of immunity.
It may be,therefor,that for reasons that are not yet clear,swine fever may be a cause of significant mortality only in Mexico City.
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Bangkok Women : Meet Sensual Bangkok Women
Posted on: 1:30 am on April 26, 2009
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DaffyDuck
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It would be worth checking the demographics of the victims that died - strains of nearly any flu usually cull most aggressively from the elderly and infants (for obvious reasons, culling the weakest of the herd) - hence, the media tends to over sensationalize such 'outbreaks' by tossing about large sounding numbers -- which invariably become far less threatening once further details about the victims are known.
This isn't to say that there isn't some risk, but frankly, further information is necessary before we should all start screaming and running around with our arms flailing.
Miss Information is the mother of irrational panic and paranoia.
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Thai Girls : Meet Sexy Thai Girls
Posted on: 2:31 am on April 26, 2009
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Valetta
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Daffy,infants tend to fall victim to flu, not because they have some genetic fault which predisposes them to infection,but because,as infants, they have not had time to develop immunity to disease.
All infants are at an increased risk of infection until about the age of 7,although if parents take extraordinary measures to shield their children from infection,this can delay the development of immunity to a considerably older age.
The old are not at an increased risk of infection compared to the rest of the population,but they are less able to overcome infection,usually not because of some genetic weakness,but because of largely lifestyle health problems such as diabetes,heart disease,or emphasema.
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Bangkok Girls : Meet Sexy Bangkok Girls
Posted on: 7:49 am on April 26, 2009
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CalEden
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The worrisome new virus which combines genetic material from pigs, birds and humans in a way researchers have not seen before.
This flu is unusual and dangerous because it is infecting:
Epidemiologists are particularly concerned because the only people killed so far were normally less-vulnerable young people and adults. Its possible that more vulnerable populations infants and the aged had been vaccinated against other strains, and that those vaccines may be providing some protection.
The majority of cases are occurring in adults between 25 and 44 years of age.
Also many of the first victims had never been around farm animals.
Print Back to story
Mexico swine flu deaths spur global epidemic fears
By MARK STEVENSON, Associated Press Writer Mark Stevenson, Associated Press Writer
Fri Apr 24, 7:39 pm ET
MEXICO CITY A unique strain of swine flu is the suspected killer of dozens of people in Mexico, where authorities closed schools, museums, libraries and theaters in the capital on Friday to try to contain an outbreak that has spurred concerns of a global flu epidemic.
The worrisome new virus which combines genetic material from pigs, birds and humans in a way researchers have not seen before also sickened at least eight people in Texas and California, though there have been no deaths in the U.S.
"We are very, very concerned," World Health Organization spokesman Thomas Abraham said. "We have what appears to be a novel virus and it has spread from human to human... It's all hands on deck at the moment."
The outbreak caused alarm in Mexico, where more than 1,000 people have been sickened. Residents of the capital donned surgical masks and authorities ordered the most sweeping shutdown of public gathering places in a quarter century. President Felipe Calderon met with his Cabinet Friday to coordinate Mexico's response.
The WHO was convening an expert panel to consider whether to raise the pandemic alert level or issue travel advisories.
It might already be too late to contain the outbreak, a prominent U.S. pandemic flu expert said late Friday.
Given how quickly flu can spread around the globe, if these are the first signs of a pandemic, then there are probably cases incubating around the world already, said Dr. Michael Osterholm at the University of Minnesota.
In Mexico City, "literally hundreds and thousands of travelers come in and out every day," Osterholm said. "You'd have to believe there's been more unrecognized transmission that's occurred."
There is no vaccine that specifically protects against swine flu, and it was unclear how much protection current human flu vaccines might offer. A "seed stock" genetically matched to the new swine flu virus has been created by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, said Dr. Richard Besser, the agency's acting director. If the government decides vaccine production is necessary, manufacturers would need that stock to get started.
Authorities in Mexico urged people to avoid hospitals unless they had a medical emergency, since hospitals are centers of infection. They also said Mexicans should refrain from customary greetings such as shaking hands or kissing cheeks. At Mexico City's international airport, passengers were questioned to try to prevent anyone with flu symptoms from boarding airplanes and spreading the disease.
Epidemiologists are particularly concerned because the only fatalities so far were in young people and adults.
The eight U.S. victims recovered from symptoms that were like those of the regular flu, mostly fever, cough and sore throat, though some also experienced vomiting and diarrhea.
U.S. health officials announced an outbreak notice to travelers, urging caution and frequent handwashing, but stopping short of telling Americans to avoid Mexico.
Mexico's Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordoba said 68 people have died of flu and the new swine flu strain had been confirmed in 20 of those deaths. At least 1,004 people nationwide were sick from the suspected flu, he said.
The geographical spread of the outbreaks also concerned the WHO while 13 of the 20 deaths were in Mexico City, the rest were spread across Mexico four in central San Luis Potosi, two up near the U.S. border in Baja California, and one in southern Oaxaca state.
Scientists have long been concerned that a new flu virus could launch a worldwide pandemic of a killer disease. A new virus could evolve when different flu viruses infect a pig, a person or a bird, mingling their genetic material. The resulting hybrid could spread quickly because people would have no natural defenses against it.
Still, flu experts were concerned but not alarmed about the latest outbreak.
"We've seen swine influenza in humans over the past several years, and in most cases, it's come from direct pig contact. This seems to be different," said Dr. Arnold Monto, a flu expert with the University of Michigan.
"I think we need to be careful and not apprehensive, but certainly paying attention to new developments as they proceed."
The CDC says two flu drugs, Tamiflu and Relenza, seem effective against the new strain. Roche, the maker of Tamiflu, said the company is prepared to immediately deploy a stockpile of the drug if requested.
Both drugs must be taken early, within a few days of the onset of symptoms, to be most effective.
Cordoba said Mexico has enough Tamiflu to treat 1 million people, but the medicine will be strictly controlled and handed out only by doctors.
Mexico's government had maintained until late Thursday that there was nothing unusual about the flu cases, although this year's flu season had been worse and longer than past years.
The sudden turnaround by public health officials angered many Mexicans.
"They could have stopped it in time," said Araceli Cruz, 24, a university student who emerged from the subway wearing a surgical mask. "Now they've let it spread to other people."
The city was handing out free surgical masks to passengers on buses and the subway system, which carries 5 million people each day. Government workers were ordered to wear the masks, and authorities urged residents to stay home from work if they felt ill.
Closing schools across Mexico's capital of 20 million kept 6.1 million students home, as well as thousands of university students. All state and city-run cultural activities were suspended, including libraries, state-run theaters, and at least 14 museums. Private athletic clubs closed down and soccer leagues were considering canceling weekend games.
The closures were the first citywide shutdown of public gathering places since millions died in the devastating 1985 earthquake.
Mexico's response brought to mind other major outbreaks, such as when SARS hit Asia. At its peak in 2003, Beijing shuttered schools, cinemas and restaurants, and thousands of people were quarantined at home.
In March 2008, Hong Kong ordered more than a half-million students to stay home for two weeks because of a flu outbreak. It was the first such closure in Hong Kong since the outbreak of SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome.
"It's great they are taking precautions," said Lillian Molina, a teacher at the Montessori's World preschool in Mexico City, who scrubbed down empty classrooms with Clorox, soap and Lysol between fielding calls from worried parents.
U.S. health officials said the outbreak is not yet a reason for alarm in the United States. The five people sickened in California and three in Texas have all recovered.
It's unclear how the eight, who became ill between late March and mid-April, contracted the virus because none were in contact with pigs, which is how people usually catch swine flu. And only a few were in contact with each other.
CDC officials described the virus as having a unique combination of gene segments not seen before in people or pigs. The bug contains human virus, avian virus from North America and pig viruses from North America, Europe and Asia. It may be completely new, or it may have been around for a while and was only detected now through improved testing and surveillance, CDC officials said.
The most notorious flu pandemic is thought to have killed at least 40 million people worldwide in 1918-19. Two other, less deadly flu pandemics struck in 1957 and 1968.
____
Associated Press Writers Maria Cheng in London; Traci Carl in Mexico City; Mike Stobbe in Atlanta, Georgia; and Malcolm Ritter in New York contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.Questions or CommentsPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceCopyright/IP Policy
(CNN) -- U.S. health officials expressed concern Friday that a swine flu virus that has infected eight people in the United States matches samples of a virus that has killed at least 68 people in Mexico.
Swine flu is usually diagnosed only in pigs or people in regular contact with them.
U.S. health experts also are concerned because more than 1,000 people have fallen ill in Mexico City in a short period of time.
"This situation has been developing quickly," said acting CDC director Richard Besser. "This is something we are worried about."
New York health officials announced Friday they are testing about 75 students at a Queens school for swine flu after the students exhibited flu-like symptoms this week.
A team of state health department doctors and staff went to the St. Francis Preparatory School in Queens on Thursday after the students reported cough, fever, sore throat, aches and pains.
There have been no confirmed cases of swine flu there. The tests results are expected as early as Saturday.
Of the 14 Mexican samples tested by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, seven were identical to the swine flu virus found in Texas and Southern California, Besser said at a news conference.
An eighth U.S. case was reported Friday. All of the eight U.S. patients have recovered, Besser said. Watch for more on the U.S. cases »
As a precaution to avoid further contamination, schools and universities in Mexico City and the state of Mexico were closed Friday, said the national health secretary, Jose Angel Cordova Villalobos. He said the schools may remain closed for a while.
Sixty-eight people have died in Mexico City, Cordova said at a news conference. More than 1,000 other people have gotten sick, he said.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon canceled a trip Friday to northern Mexico so he could remain in Mexico City to monitor the situation, the state-run Notimex news agency reported. Calderon met with his Cabinet on Thursday night to discuss the outbreak.
Don't Miss
CDC confirms 7 cases of swine flu in humans
CDC: Swine flu
Six of the U.S. cases were found in California, and two in Texas, near San Antonio, CDC officials said.
The Public Health Agency of Canada issued a respiratory alert for Mexico on Wednesday, recommending that health providers "actively look for cases" in Canada, particularly in people who've returned from Mexico within the last two weeks.
An alert issued Friday by the International SOS medical and consulting company said more than 130 cases of a severe respiratory illness have been detected in south and central Mexico, some of which are due to influenza.
"Public health officials in Mexico began actively looking for cases of respiratory illness upon noticing that the seasonal peak of influenza extended into April, when cases usually decline in number," the medical alert said. "They found two outbreaks of illness -- one centered around Distrito Federal (Mexico City), involving about 120 cases with 13 deaths. The other is in San Luis Potosi, with 14 cases and four deaths."
Authorities also detected one death in Oaxaca, in the south, and two in Baja California Norte, near San Diego, California.
There was no indication why the International SOS tallies did not match the Mexican health secretary's figures.
The majority of cases are occurring in adults between 25 and 44 years of age.
The CDC first reported Tuesday that two California children in the San Diego area were infected with a virus called swine influenza A H1N1, whose combination of genes had not been seen before in flu viruses in humans or pigs.
The first two cases were picked up through an influenza monitoring program, with stations in San Diego and El Paso, Texas. The program monitors strains and tries to detect new ones before they spread, the CDC said. Other cases emerged through routine and expanded surveillance.
The human influenza vaccine's ability to protect against the new swine flu strain is unknown, and studies are ongoing, Schuchat said. There is no danger of contracting the virus from eating pork products, she said.
The new virus has genes from North American swine and avian influenza, human influenza, and swine influenza normally found in Asia and Europe, said Nancy Cox, chief of the CDC's Influenza Division.
The new strain of swine flu has resisted some antiviral drugs.
Health Library
MayoClinic.com: Influenza (flu)
The CDC is working with health officials in California and Texas and expects to find more cases, Schuchat said.
A pandemic is defined as: a new virus to which everybody is susceptible; the ability to readily spread from person to person; and the capability of causing significant disease in humans, said Dr. Jay Steinberg, an infectious disease specialist at Emory University Hospital Midtown in Atlanta. The new strain of swine flu meets only one of the criteria: novelty.
History indicates that flu pandemics tend to occur once every 20 years or so, so we're due for one, Steinberg said.
"I can say with 100 percent confidence that a pandemic of a new flu strain will spread in humans," he said. "What I can't say is when it will
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Thai Women : Meet Matured Thai Women
Posted on: 12:10 pm on April 26, 2009
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CalEden
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This could be just the conspiracy nuts surfacing, but the combination of avian, swine, and human flu strains makes me wonder.
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Unique Strain:Is the Swine Flu Outbreak a Bio-Terror Attack?
RightSideNews ^ | April 25, 2009 | Gregs Blog
Posted on Saturday, April 25, 2009 2:39:39 PM by BenLurkin
In a discussion this morning with a cell biologist and medical doctor working at Johns Hopkins, my friend thought this 4-part flu combination is highly unusual and looks like it could be man-made. Especially because it has an avian strain. My doctor friend (he's Taiwanese) explained that in Asia, it's common for a avian-swine-human flu to happen naturally, but this virus first showed up in Mexico, where pigs and ducks are not usually raised together. Also, recombination of more than 2-different flu viruses is extremely rare. I'm just repeating what he said as an expert in the field. He says the CDC needs to explain if there is a possibility that we are under a bio-weapon attack. From CDC via Wikipedia: Anne Schuchat, director of CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said that the American cases were found to be made up of genetic elements from four different flu viruses -- North American swine influenza, North American avian influenza, human influenza A virus subtype H1N1, and swine influenza virus typically found in Asia and Europe.
For two cases a complete genome sequence had been obtained. She said that the virus was resistant to amantadine and rimantadine, but susceptible to oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and zanamivir (Relenza).[22][23][24] Preliminary genetic characterization found that the hemagglutinin (HA) gene was similar to that of swine flu viruses present in U.S. pigs since 1999, but the neuraminidase (NA) and matrix protein (M) genes resembled versions present in European swine flu isolates. Viruses with this genetic makeup had not previously been found to be circulating in humans or pigs, but there is no formal national surveillance system to determine what viruses are circulating in pigs in the U.S.[25]
The seasonal influenza strain H1N1 vaccine is thought to be unlikely to provide protection.[26]
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Bangkok Women : Meet Beautiful Thai Girls
Posted on: 12:15 pm on April 26, 2009
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don5252
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A good place to start a bio-attack, an over populated 3rd world shit hole like Mexico City, might be time to leave L.A., if I start feeling a little feverish it's off to LOS, wanna go out w/a bang
There is a bright side, good way to get the planet green again
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Bangkok Girls : Meet Attractive Thai Girls
Posted on: 12:51 pm on April 26, 2009
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CalEden
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Yes, and many of the first Mexico City victims had never been around farm animals.
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Thai Girls : Meet Active Thai Girls
Posted on: 12:55 pm on April 26, 2009
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DaffyDuck
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Quote: from CalEden on 12:15 am on April 27, 2009
This could be just the conspiracy nuts surfacing, but the combination of avian, swine, and human flu strains makes me wonder.
Yes, leave that to nuts like Hermanolobo.
From the prior article you pasted: "...or it may have been around for a while and was only detected now through improved testing and surveillance..."
Additionally, from the very conspiracy prone article you pasted: "My doctor friend explained that in Asia, it's common for a avian-swine-human flu to happen naturally..."
....and I guess since no people from Asia *ever* travel to Mexico, or no Mexicans *ever* travel to Asia, there is absolutely no clear-cut way that anyone could imagine how any possible carrier could have traveled between the two countries.
Particularly questionable coming from a *blog*, especially from a site prone to bloggers prone to 'speculation' like Free Republic - particularly since this 'speculation' was set up in the usual subdued sensationalism way ("A friend of mine, who is an absolute expert in this very field, was overheard saying...").
IMO, the only two points that actually matter, and that may be the closest to what's actually going on:
"My doctor friend explained that in Asia, it's common for a avian-swine-human flu to happen naturally..."
and
From the prior article you pasted: "...or it may have been around for a while and was only detected now through improved testing and surveillance..."
Thanks for posting these CalEden - though please try to clean up stuff you paste in the future. Extra spaces and formatting placeholder text can easily be removed before posting a pasted article. Thanks again.
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Thai Women : Meet Matured Thai Women
Posted on: 2:25 pm on April 26, 2009
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DaffyDuck
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Quote: from Valetta on 7:49 pm on April 26, 2009
Daffy,infants tend to fall victim to flu, not because they have some genetic fault which predisposes them to infection
(...)
The old are not at an increased risk of infection compared to the rest of the population,but they are less able to overcome infection,usually not because of some genetic weakness
You are correct in your explanation of the pathology of infants' and elderly's susceptibility to fatality in infections, but I am thoroughly confused where you got that I alleged that some 'genetic weakness' was presumably at fault for either of these - something which I never even so much as implied, because it would have been incorrect.
Infants and elderly are more susceptible for the obvious reasons - which you have outlined (weakened or untrained immune systems). I never implicated genetic reasons.
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Bangkok Girls : Meet Attractive Thai Girls
Posted on: 2:41 pm on April 26, 2009
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