| The Mexican Swine Flu Epidemic | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Apr 25 2009, 08:51 AM (5,064 Views) | |
| Baldo | Apr 25 2009, 08:51 AM Post #1 |
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Looks like this is a real problem in Mexico City. MEXICO CITY – The schools and museums are closed. Sold-out games between Mexico's most popular soccer teams are being played in empty stadiums. Health workers are ordering sickly passengers off subways and buses. And while bars and nightclubs filled up as usual, even some teenagers were dancing with surgical masks on. Across this overcrowded capital of 20 million people, Mexicans are reacting with fatalism and confusion, anger and mounting fear at the idea that their city may be ground zero for a global epidemic of a new kind of flu — a strange mix of human, pig and bird viruses that has epidemiologists deeply concerned. Tests show 20 people in Mexico have died of the new swine flu strain, and that 48 other deaths were probably due to the same strain. The caseload of those sickened has grown to 1,004 nationwide, Mexico's Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova said. The same virus also sickened at least eight people in Texas and California, though there have been no deaths north of the border, puzzling experts at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Scientists have warned for years about the potential for a pandemic from viruses that mix genetic material from humans and animals. This outbreak is particularly worrisome because deaths have happened in at least four different regions of Mexico, and because the victims have not been vulnerable infants and elderly... http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090425/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/med_swine_flu Something we should watch more closely but with calm |
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| Kerri P. | Apr 25 2009, 10:02 AM Post #2 |
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http://www.wral.com/news/national_world/national/story/5023784/ WHO: Mexico swine flu has 'pandemic potential' Posted: Today at 9:38 a.m. Updated: 18 minutes ago GENEVA — An outbreak of swine flu in Mexico and the United States is a quickly evolving situation that has "pandemic potential," the head of the World Health Organization said Saturday before an emergency meeting of flu experts. WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said the North American outbreak of a never-before-seen virus was a very serious situation. She called Saturday's emergency meeting to consider declaring an international public health emergency over the outbreak, which is believed to have killed dozens of people in Mexico and sickened at least eight in the U.S. The experts are also expected to recommend whether WHO should raise its pandemic alert to a higher level. At least 62 people have died from severe pneumonia caused by a flu-like illness in Mexico, according to WHO. Some of those who died are confirmed to have a unique version of the A/H1N1 flu virus that is a combination of bird, pig and human viruses. snip... |
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| brittany | Apr 25 2009, 11:57 AM Post #3 |
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Health Dept: 75 St. Francis Prep Students Sickened NEW YORK (AP) -- New York City health officials say that about 75 students at a Queens high school have fallen ill with flu-like symptoms and testing is under way to rule out the strain of swine flu that has killed dozens in Mexico. The Health Department's Dr. Don Weiss said Friday that a team of agency doctors and investigators were dispatched to the private St. Francis Preparatory School the previous day after students reported fever, sore throat, cough, aches and pains. No one has been hospitalized. The handful of sick students who remained at the school were tested for a variety of flu strains. If they're found to have a known human strain that would rule out swine flu. Results could take several days. In the meantime, the school says it's postponing an evening event and sanitizing the building over the weekend Edited by brittany, Apr 25 2009, 05:51 PM.
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| brittany | Apr 25 2009, 12:01 PM Post #4 |
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The agency said about 75 students at St. Francis Preparatory School had complained Thursday of nausea, fever, dizziness and aches and pains. Several of the students were said to have recently traveled to Mexico, where as many as 61 people have died and possibly hundreds more have been infected in an outbreak of swine flu in recent weeks.
Edited by brittany, Apr 25 2009, 12:01 PM.
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| wingedwheel | Apr 25 2009, 12:31 PM Post #5 |
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Not Pictured Above
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Yes, but I am sure the media will find someone out there that will blame it on the US. |
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| brittany | Apr 25 2009, 02:00 PM Post #6 |
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This is getting serious.3PM authorities to speak with reporters. http://www.newsday.com/news/local/ny-liflu2612698713apr25,0,3679067.story Edited by brittany, Apr 25 2009, 02:00 PM.
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| brittany | Apr 25 2009, 04:15 PM Post #7 |
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http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2009/04/25/2009-04-25_mexico_city_cancels_all_public_events_.html Story update: New York City health officials confirm that students at St. Francis Preparatory School in Queens are probably infected with swine flu. They have the same general type of flu virus, influenza A, as the swine flu. The exact strain has not been isolated, yet. Edited by brittany, Apr 25 2009, 04:16 PM.
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| brittany | Apr 25 2009, 05:50 PM Post #8 |
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5:43 PM EDT, April 25, 2009 Eight students at a Queens Catholic high school likely have swine flu, authorities said Saturday, but they aren't sure whether it's the same strain that's killed dozens in Mexico and sickened many more across North America. City epidemiologists say more tests are needed to conclude whether the students at St. Francis Preparatory School in Fresh Meadows - one of the nation's largest Catholic high schools - have the deadly Mexican strain. The latest results came from oral and nasal swab tests taken from more than seven dozen who fell ill late in the week, the city health commissioner, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, said at an afternoon news conference. "What's concerning about this, is that it is likely swine flu," he said. "Second, at this time, it is spreading from person to person. We don't know if it will continue spreading from person to person." |
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| Baldo | Apr 25 2009, 06:08 PM Post #9 |
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Mexico fights swine flu with 'pandemic potential' As Mexico struggled against the odds Saturday to contain a strange new flu that has killed as many as 68 and perhaps sickened more than 1,000, it was becoming clearer that the government hasn't moved quickly enough to head off what the World Health Organization said has the potential to become a global epidemic. The World Health Organization said the outbreak has become a "public health emergency of international concern" and asked countries around the world to step up reporting and surveillance of the disease and implement a coordinated response to contain it. But Mexicans were dying for weeks at least before U.S. scientists identified the strain — a combination of swine, bird and human influenza that people may have no natural immunity to. Now, even controlling passengers at airports and bus stations may not keep it from spreading, epidemiologists say.... ...At Mexico City's international airport, health workers passed out written questionnaires seeking to identify passengers with flu symptoms. Surgical masks and brochures were handed out at bus and subway stations. The U.S. embassy in Mexico posted a message advising U.S. citizens to avoid large crowds, shaking hands, greeting people with a kiss or using the subway. Particularly difficult in a metropolis as crowded as Mexico City was the embassy's advice to maintain "a distance of at least six feet from other persons may decrease the risk of exposure." Early detection and treatment are key to stopping any outbreak. WHO guidance calls for isolating the sick and blanketing everyone around them with antiviral drugs such as Tamiflu. Now, with patients showing up all across Mexico and its teeming capital, simple math suggests that kind of response is impossible. Mexico appears to have lost valuable days or weeks in detecting the new virus... http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/04/24/international/i132625D23.DTL&tsp=1 I read a great book called the "Hot Zone" by Richard Preston. Scary thought, but this sure did appear out of nowhere makes you wonder., Edited by Baldo, Apr 25 2009, 06:11 PM.
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| Baldo | Apr 25 2009, 06:20 PM Post #10 |
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The White Report has reported that Obama is OK but look at this Obama’s Visit The first case was seen in Mexico on April 13. The outbreak coincided with the President Barack Obama’s trip to Mexico City on April 16. Obama was received at Mexico’s anthropology museum in Mexico City by Felipe Solis, a distinguished archeologist who died the following day from symptoms similar to flu, Reforma newspaper reported. The newspaper didn’t confirm if Solis had swine flu or not.[/i] http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aEsNownABJ6Q&refer=worldwide |
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| Kerri P. | Apr 25 2009, 06:22 PM Post #11 |
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http://www.wral.com/news/science/story/5025213/ Swine flu worse in Mexico than US, but why? Posted: 9 minutes ago ATLANTA — Why has the swine flu engulfing Mexico been deadly there, but not in the United States? Nearly all those who died in Mexico were between 20 and 40 years old, and they died of severe pneumonia from a flu-like illness believed caused by a unique swine flu virus. The 11 U.S. victims cover a wider age range, as young as 9 to over 50. All those people either recovered or are recovering; at least two were hospitalized. "So far we have been quite fortunate," said Dr. Anne Schuchat of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Saturday, just hours before three new U.S. cases were confirmed. Health experts worry about a flu that kills healthy young adults - a hallmark of the worst global flu epidemics. Deaths from most ordinary flu outbreaks occur among the very young and very old. Why the two countries are experiencing the illness differently is puzzling public health experts, who say they frankly just don't know. It may be that the bug only seems more deadly in Mexico. And while experts believe Mexico is the epicenter of the outbreak, they're not certain if new cases are occurring or if the situation is getting worse. They also don't know if another virus might be circulating in Mexico that could be compounding the problem. A big question is, Just how deadly is the virus in Mexico? The seasonal flu tends to kill just a fraction of 1 percent of those infected. In Mexico, about 70 deaths out of roughly 1,000 cases represents a fatality rate of about 7 percent. The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-19, which killed an estimated 40 million worldwide, had a fatality rate of about 2.5 percent. The Mexican rate sounds terrifying. But it's possible that far more than 1,000 people have been infected with the virus and that many had few if any symptoms, said Dr. Michael Osterholm, a prominent pandemic expert at the University of Minnesota. U.S. health officials echoed him. snip... |
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| brittany | Apr 25 2009, 07:37 PM Post #12 |
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/world/americas/26flu.html?hp |
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| retiredLEO | Apr 25 2009, 08:19 PM Post #13 |
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Mexico probably has universal health care? |
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| LTC8K6 | Apr 25 2009, 08:55 PM Post #14 |
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Assistant to The Devil Himself
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Hopefully this is the media's usual hysteria...
Edited by LTC8K6, Apr 25 2009, 08:57 PM.
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| mike in houston | Apr 25 2009, 10:33 PM Post #15 |
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I don't know if I have the swine flu or the regular old kind, but this is the worst case that I ever had. The worst part is the shortness of breath. I have to sit down for awhile after climbing the stairs. It started four days ago with a sore throat. Seems to be abating somewhat this evening, thank God. |
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