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Leading a worldwide rush, the Unites States has declared a Public Health Emergency to keep under control the impact of the never before encountered virus, swine flu. In the US there have been 20 cases reported in five states. The cases have been mild, with people recovering from the virus.
Up to 80 deaths have been reported in Mexico, with approximately 1,324 people becoming sick since April 13. Healthy, young people between the ages of 20-40 years have died. It would seem the Mexican government may have been slow to react to the outbreak in March and early April. Many schools have been closed and all public meetings have been cancelled.
The United States is moving twelve million doses of the drug Tamiflu from a federal stockpile, to where it can more readily distributed, if necessary. Priority is being given to the five states already affected: California, Texas, New York, Ohio and Kansas.
“People need to think of it as a declaration of emergency preparedness,”
WHO Director General Margaret Chan, says, “The virus has clearly a pandemic potential”. Pandemics happen when there is a radical mutation of a virus, to which people have no immunity.
Dr. Richard Besser, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, says "The situation is uncertain and unpredictable and likely to be a marathon more than a sprint."
New viruses are formed when a minimum of two viruses merge. Pigs are known to be especially efficient ‘mixing vessels’. The new swine virus has gene segments of the bird flu, one gene segment from a human flu and two gene segments from a pig virus.
Approximately 157 people were killed by the bird (avian) flu, while infecting over 335 people. Over 150 million birds are believed to have been affected and it could take several years to control the disease in poultry. Birds in Southern Asia, Turkey, and Nigeria have been infected, while Britain, Austria, Italy, Greece, Switzerland, France and Germany all have confirmed cases. The virus is passed to humans through contact with live infected birds. Some experts believe the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 was Avian flu virus, which killed approximately 40 million people.
The pandemics of 1957 and 1968 in Hong Kong, both originated from flu viruses in birds. The possibility of a global pandemic was restrained in 1976, when some 40 million Americans were inoculated in a controversial nationwide campaign. The program was called to a halt when some serious , what was believed to be inoculation related, neurological conditions were found in several hundred people.
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