The swine Flu Epidemic

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.

Linus Orakles

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