Swine Flu Info Blog

28 comments:

Jimmy said...

H1N1 Influenza (commonly referred to as the Swine Flu) is a new influenza virus causing illness in people in the US and countries around the world. It has elements of influenza that have previously been found in humans, pigs, and birds. It is important to know how to avoid getting the infection from another person and to avoid spreading it if you have it.
Why are we so worried about the H1N1 influenza when thousands die every year from seasonal flu? According to the World Health Organization (WHO), seasonal epidemics occur every year but the virus is treated with seasonal vaccines. H1N1 is a new virus to which people have no immunity increasing the possibility of a world-wide epidemic.
H1N1 influenza A virus is thought to spread mainly from person-to-person in the same way that seasonal flu spreads, which is through coughing or sneezing of people with influenza. Sometimes people may become infected by touching something with flu viruses on it and then touching their mouth or nose. You cannot get the flu from eating pork. You also cannot get the flu from handling automobile parts.
The symptoms of H1N1 flu in people are similar to the symptoms of regular human flu and include fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue. Some people have reported diarrhea and vomiting. Like regular seasonal flu, H1N1 flu may cause a worsening of underlying chronic medical conditions, such as heart and lung disease.
Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. Throw the tissue into the trash after you use it. Wash your hands often with soap and water, especially after you cough or sneeze. Alcohol-based hand cleaners are also effective. Avoid touching your eyes, nose, or mouth to prevent the spread of germs.
If you are exposed to the flu or have traveled to an area in which there have been cases of the flu, monitor yourself for flu symptoms for 7 days because it may take that long for the illness to develop. See your doctor if you start coming down with the symptoms of the flu. Public health experts recommend that you stay home from work or school and limit contact with others to keep from infecting them.
It is expected that most people will recover without needing medical care. If indicated, there are antiviral medications called Tamiflu and Relenza that can make your illness milder and make you feel better faster. They may also prevent serious flu complications. For treatment, antiviral drugs work best if started soon after getting sick (within 2 days of onset of symptoms).
The best defense against the flu is to wash your hands.

May 22, 2009 at 2:37 AM

♥-Kɑtε-♥ ♥-Michεllε-♥ said...

It is no different. In fact, it is less infectious then seasonal flu.
There are viruses spreading around the world all the time but they go unreported. Pandemics have happened throughout history, but because of the lack of technology they were never reported. People put Pandemics in the past down to Gods will and not scientific mutation.
It is believed that a further mutation would be needed in order for the H1N1 virus to cause the mass deaths that have been estimated by some.
But at this point, it is impossible to predict with any accuracy how the virus will continue to evolve.
UK experts at the National Institute for Medical Research will outline on Friday the work they are due to start on samples of the virus sent from the US.
The research, being done at the World Influenza Centre in Mill Hill, will be vital for working out the structure of the virus, where it came from, how quickly it is capable of spreading and its potential to cause illness.
The swine flu strain is a H1N1 virus, the same type as seasonal flu which circulates throughout the world every year, and kills roughly 1% of those infected.
Worrying about this will do nothing, worrying makes your immune system lower because you get less sleep and you eat less. So stop worrying about something we can't affect. Mother Nature obviously thinks this is the best thing to happen to the human race, but we have survived much worse! If we got wiped out after every virus threat, civilisation probably wouldnt have lasted very long.
If we ended up in a pandemic, people would start panic buying non perishable foods, would stay indoors, borders would be closed, travel restricted, people would basically go into hiding.

May 22, 2009 at 4:44 AM

vonneyay said...

It is no different. In fact, it is less infectious then seasonal flu.
There are viruses spreading around the world all the time but they go unreported. Pandemics have happened throughout history, but because of the lack of technology they were never reported. People put Pandemics in the past down to Gods will and not scientific mutation.
It is believed that a further mutation would be needed in order for the H1N1 virus to cause the mass deaths that have been estimated by some.
But at this point, it is impossible to predict with any accuracy how the virus will continue to evolve.
UK experts at the National Institute for Medical Research will outline on Friday the work they are due to start on samples of the virus sent from the US.
The research, being done at the World Influenza Centre in Mill Hill, will be vital for working out the structure of the virus, where it came from, how quickly it is capable of spreading and its potential to cause illness.
The swine flu strain is a H1N1 virus, the same type as seasonal flu which circulates throughout the world every year, and kills roughly 1% of those infected.
Worrying about this will do nothing, worrying makes your immune system lower because you get less sleep and you eat less. So stop worrying about something we can't affect. Mother Nature obviously thinks this is the best thing to happen to the human race, but we have survived much worse! If we got wiped out after every virus threat, civilisation probably wouldnt have lasted very long.
If we ended up in a pandemic, people would start panic buying non perishable foods, would stay indoors, borders would be closed, travel restricted, people would basically go into hiding

May 22, 2009 at 10:59 AM

Anis said...

Unless you have access to a virology laboratory, you probably can't distinguish the two. Symptoms of swine and seasonal flu include fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, headache, chills, and fatigue. Patients do seem to be reporting diarrhoea and vomiting more often with swine flu than is the case for "normal" flu, but in practice the two forms are probably indistinguishable.

May 22, 2009 at 5:58 PM

Patriot1 said...

The US CDC was on CNN yesterday, and basically said that it is not. The symptoms are no different, and the death rate is no different. The only difference is people in general are less immune to getting it, so more people are coming down with it.
Also, we're having the flu in April and May ... this isn't flu season. If this many people had the flu in January or February, this would not be news.

May 22, 2009 at 11:10 PM

Linda Marcus said...

It does raise serious questions about where this brand new, never before seen virus came from, especially since it cannot be contracted from eating pork products, and has never before been seen in pigs, and contains traits from the bird flu and which so far only seems to respond to Tamiflu.
According to the Associated Press at least one financial analyst estimates up to $388 million worth of Tamiflu sales in the near future. That's without a pandemic outbreak.
More than half a dozen pharmaceutical companies, including Gilead Sciences Inc., Roche, GlaxoSmithKline and other companies with a stake in flu treatments and detection, have seen a rise in their shares in a matter of days, and will likely see revenue boosts if the swine flu outbreak continues to spread.
In February 2009, American pharmaceutical company Baxter was under investigation for distributing the deadly avian flu virus to 18 different countries as part of a seasonal flu vaccine shipment. Czech reporters were probing to see if it may have been part of a deliberate attempt to start a pandemic; as such a "mistake" would be virtually impossible under the security protocols of that virus.
The contaminated product, a mix of H3N2 seasonal flu viruses and unlabelled H5N1 viruses, was supplied to an Austrian research company. The Austrian firm, Avir Green Hills Biotechnology, then sent portions of it to sub-contractors in the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Germany.
The contaminated product, which Baxter calls “experimental virus material,” was made at the Orth-Donau research facility. Baxter makes its flu vaccine, including a human H5N1 vaccine (for which a licence is expected shortly) at a facility in the Czech Republic. People familiar with biosecurity rules are dismayed by evidence that human H3N2 and avian H5N1 viruses somehow co-mingled in the Orth-Donau facility. That is a dangerous practice that should not be allowed to happen, a number of experts insisted.
While H5N1 doesn’t easily infect people, H3N2 viruses do. If someone exposed to a mixture of the two had been simultaneously infected with both strains, he or she could have served as an incubator for a hybrid virus able to transmit easily to and among people. That mixing process, called “reassortment”, is one of two ways pandemic viruses are created in the lab.
Reassortment is the mixing of the genetic material of two similar viruses that are infecting the same cell. In particular, reassortment occurs among influenza viruses, whose genomes consist of eight distinct segments of RNA. These segments act like mini-chromosomes, and each time a flu virus is assembled, it requires one copy of each segment.
The H5N1 virus on its own is not very airborne. However, when combined with seasonal flu viruses, which are more easily spread, the effect could be a potent, airborne, deadly, biological weapon. If this batch of live bird flu and seasonal flu viruses had reached the public, it could have resulted in terrible consequences. Some scientists say the most recent global outbreak (the 1977 Russian flu) was started by a virus created and leaked from a laboratory.
A top scientist for the United Nations, who has examined the outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in Africa, as well as HIV/AIDS victims, has concluded that the current swine flu virus possesses certain transmission "vectors" that suggest the new strain has been genetically-manufactured. The UN expert believes that Ebola, HIV/AIDS, and the current A-H1N1 swine flu virus are biological warfare agents.
Another example of the less sterling integrity of Big Pharma is the case of Bayer, who sold millions of dollars worth of an injectable blood-clotting medicine to Asian, Latin American, and some European countries in the mid-1980s, even though they knew it was tainted with the AIDS virus.
There is no vaccine against the new swine flu virus. But the CDC and the World Health Organization are already taking the steps toward making such a vaccine.

May 23, 2009 at 3:58 AM

Spencer K said...

It is just like the regular flu but it is in a different form. Over 36000 people die from the regular flu in america every year and about 1.2 million in the world. It is just going to go away like the bird flu. anybody remeber that? i didn't think so
Just get over it the news is hyping it up wayyyyyy to much only one person in america has died. The only reason lots of people in mexico have died is because it is not clean and they don't have the greatest health care. You could die there from having a sore throat.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it main stream bitches

May 23, 2009 at 10:49 AM

emoglitt said...

It's important to stay up to date on things. Here are some resources--
Prepare:http://www.ehow.com/how_4962439_prepare-...
Travel:http://www.ehow.com/how_4947244_travel-d...
Avoid Swine Fluhttp://www.ehow.com/how_4934263_avoid-sw...

May 23, 2009 at 11:04 AM

William K said...

In the US and most places, it's a relatively mild form of the regular flu. Nothing to worry more about than normal (though the normal flu kills 35,000 Americans a year and we don't seem to care, but we panic over a strain that has killed only one person!!!!)..

May 23, 2009 at 2:16 PM

mathiast said...

the swine flu is a mixture of three different flu if im not mistake bird flu human flu and swine flu so it is the regular flu mixed with flu from different species thus making it deadly because its not meant for our bodies so when we aquire this flu our bodies have trouble fighting it

May 23, 2009 at 6:04 PM

April said...

Facts about the Swine Flu can be found by clicking the source below.

May 23, 2009 at 11:52 PM

Sheryl said...

Here is an image of what Swine Flu "looks" like:http://www.ehow.com/how_4932177_proactiv...

May 24, 2009 at 6:27 AM

Jason said...

The center for disease control and this site http://www.symptomsswineflu.org/about/ have information on Swine Flu.

May 24, 2009 at 9:14 AM

Connor said...

Its just a drifferent strain of the flu, it can be cured, unless you get like neumonia, or you have got a weak immun system, you will be fine

May 24, 2009 at 11:54 AM

twoforth said...

It is deemed deadly because it has suspectedly caused hundreds of deaths in Mexico.
As for it being different from any seasonal flu; it seems more like a seasonal flu and stomach flu put together.

May 24, 2009 at 6:47 PM

bomberb0 said...

who cares... bird flu is being blown waaay outa proportion... GROW UP AND LOOK AT THE FACTS
the normal flu kills more people... (35000) each year
how many has the bird flu killed?
ya you get the picture

May 24, 2009 at 11:46 PM

TrevorM said...

It has more to do with vomiting, bad lungs, and respiratory problems than the regular flu if you doubt this or want a more reliable answer just google it.

May 25, 2009 at 6:14 AM

Kevin H said...

it is different in that people believe swine flu is dangerous and common flu is not. Actually you are much more likely to die from common flu.

May 25, 2009 at 5:34 PM

Anonymous said...

It constantly mutates so vaccines cant be made also there are different symptoms like terrible swelling of cells.

May 25, 2009 at 8:27 PM

Peter C said...

check out this aussie site http://www.swinefluaustralia.com erverything u need to know
pc

May 25, 2009 at 10:21 PM

Sunnie H said...

The regular flu kills HUNDREDS if not thousands of people each year- so far 1 person has died in the US.. and the kid wasn't even american he was from mexico city.

May 26, 2009 at 12:55 AM

David R said...

It's caused by a new virus, so there is no swine flu vaccine available to prevent infections.

May 26, 2009 at 1:03 AM

huscafat said...

Different because its name.
Egyptians kill all pork stocks because of swine flu
just to prove the typo in their deutshe grammar. :-)

May 26, 2009 at 5:43 AM

SamanthaXCORE (: said...

it5's deadly because it is,
and there isent a cure.
& hopefully it goes away. (:
but seriously...
uhm.. i honestly dont know.. but you could go look it up on webmd.com

May 26, 2009 at 5:58 AM

metty430 said...

the swine flu can get worst in less than 3 days and it has a chance of killing you!! (if you don't treat it right away)

May 26, 2009 at 6:03 AM

Paul RN said...

Different virus.

May 26, 2009 at 12:43 PM

yellowne said...

different strain that is resistant to know medicine for reg. flu

May 26, 2009 at 2:09 PM

♥™ said...

yea its different from the regular flu
cuz
swine flu kills ppl

May 26, 2009 at 2:40 PM