When swine flu began to
show up last month in North America, the CDC started work analyzing
virus samples from swine flu patients in Mexico to compare against the
viruses extracted from swine flu patients in the US. The two kinds of
swine flu were found to be similar, and different from anything that
had ever been seen before.
Mexico has seen in excess of 60 deaths from the swine flu so far.
Surprisingly, the slain in Mexico are people who were young and
healthy. This confirms the feeling that this virus is a new strain that
has previously never been encountered before by humanity. If it
happened that the flu was slaying the weakest in the population, that
the old or the very young, just the way things happen with normal
seasonal flu, it would be a normal scenario. To have the healthiest
part of the population succumb with their health and their strong
immunities offering no defense against the flu, shows that it is not a
matter of strength or health anymore; it is a matter of a new organism
that the human body has no resistance against yet.
In normal flu, winters are the most troublesome months; with the onset
of summer, the flu virus withers away in the heat. It is beginning to
look like
the swine flu virus is not affected by the heat in the way
the seasonal flu virus is. It is also beginning to appear that it has
been put off for too late to keep the virus from spreading to other
continents. There are cases of swine flu on opposite coasts of the US
among people who have not actually been in contact in any way. This
would imply that the virus is going person-to-person through many
separate cycles and carriers.
The WHO is trying to determine whether this epidemic may be called a
pandemic yet. Since there is significant transmission from person to
person at this stage the WHO's pandemic alert is only on Phase 5. If
the current level of threat is able to sustain itself for a while
longer, the WHO imagines that it will be declaring a Phase 6 pandemic.
The swine flu virus has so far not proven to be very efficient at being
contagious. This aspect of the swine flu virus has been studied and
will be known about soon.
The CDC is not waiting around to see if a pandemic will be declared
though; it is in advanced stages of having a vaccine ready against
swine flu; it wonders if the new vaccine will be ready by the time the
seasonal flu season begins in October. Producing a vaccine for a new
disease is no small matter; to do it with an eye on the clock is a
Herculean task.
The CDC advises people to exercise common sense preventive behavior.
Washing hands often, wearing masks around people known to suffer from
swine flu and not traveling to areas that have been in the news for
swine flu, are good ideas for now. If anyone should find that they have
flu-like symptoms that go beyond a mere cough or headache, they should
seek medical treatment.
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