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New Flu Strain Appears In the US and Mexico
Combat Wombat writes with this excerpt from Reuters:
"A strain of flu never seen before has killed up to 60 people in Mexico and also appeared in the United States, where eight people were infected but recovered, health officials said on Friday. Mexico's government said at least 20 people have died of the flu and it may also be responsible for 40 other deaths. [The government] shut down schools and canceled major public events in Mexico City to try to prevent more deaths in the sprawling, overcrowded capital. ... Close analysis showed the disease is a mixture of swine, human and avian viruses, according to the CDC. Humans can occasionally catch swine flu from pigs but rarely have they been known to pass it on to other people. Mexico reported 1,004 suspected cases of the new virus, including four possible cases in Mexicali on the border with California.
Wow, with news at this pace, we would find out about the end of the world a week after!
The flu has (very likely) already hit Queens, NY. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/25/nyregion/25sick.html?_r=1&hp
The reason why this strain is so bad is because it's transmissible from person to person with ease.
On the plus side, it's not resistant to Tamiflu... yet. Given that strains of Tamiflu-resistant human flu are turning up, I wouldn't be surprised to see this one learn to dodge bullets as well.
That's why this strain is seen as a potential pandemic.
Viable Slashdot alternatives: https://pipedot.org/ and http://soylentnews.org/
Before this spreads unnecessarily, this would be an ideal time to limit air flight in and out of the Americas.
We as a species are putting everyone at risk by allowing unlimited, unrestricted, near-instantaneous travel from point to point on the globe.
Shipping cargo can continue of course; if the crew get sick en route, they can always be quarantined off the coast of wherever they arrive.
New Scientist Magazine also has a good introductory article about it:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17025-deadly-new-flu-virus-in-us-and-mexico-may-go-pandemic.html
From the article:
Flu viruses are named after the two main proteins on their surfaces, abbreviated H and N. They are also differentiated by what animal they usually infect. The H in the new virus comes from pigs, but some of its other genes come from bird and human flu viruses, a mixture that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls "very unusual".
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When people start making comments like this, I can't help wondering if this was someone's science project that got out into the open instead of a strain that occurred naturally.
...as this article learns us.
Makes you indeed wonder !
Mental note: beware of Replikins bringing medicine to lethal flu.
I have a Macbook Pro. That means I'm immune, right?
What? This article isn't about a .1 release of your favorite open source software package?
Despite that fact, it really is Slashdot's purview. Biology, migration, politics, computer models, projections, population studies ...
... on a low. Perhaps a good buy, as Tamiflu is said to help.
Or should I say clever timing?
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
> The chances of these proteins from bird, avian flu combining with a swine retro virus
> that is easily transmittable is astronomical.
Yes, it is fairly likely. Influenza viruses do this sort of thing all the time.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I thought the reason it was so bad is because many of the dead are young adults. That's one of the milestones of a really dangerous pandemic, right?
The only way to be sure you are safe is a total body condom.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Believe it? I caught it.
San Antonio area was one of the first hit, and for all the cases diagnosed, I guarantee ya there are dozens more that couldn't afford to see a doctor.
Didn't feel TOO much worse than the normal version of flu. Little less achy, but a LOT more power-hurling.
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
For any epidemic with a new strain, there's ALWAYS something that's fairly unusual and something you have never seen before.
In fact, it's unusual NOT to see something unusual. I get suspicious when there's nothing strange with a straight textbook case. Someone's probably not investigating hard enough.
In case you haven't guessed yet, I am by profession an epidemiologist. There's NOT ENOUGH information available to the public to draw any conclusions. I'm sure the guys on this one are up to their eyeballs with conflicting information and are trying to sort it all out.
There's a potential, but until we know better, keep your fearmongering to yourself.
And you're using the word "vector" wrong. Depending on what you believe, your understanding might not even be wrong.
I would guess that if a serious flu comes through, you will not be able to avoid it.
However, if I understand correctly, flu typically kills by filling the lungs up with mucus, and preventing breathing -- a fatal pneumonia, if you will. However, such a symptom is entirely (and easily) treatable. The treatment is called PP &D, and it takes about 20 minutes to drain the lungs. In other words, in the time it would take the ambulance to get you and get you to the hospital, you could be in good enough condition to walk out the door.
I've done this on my kid, and it does greatly improve breathing function.
Therefore, my advice would be to simply be prepared to do PP & D on others, the price being that they learn to do it, and do PP & D on still others in a 2:1 ratio until the need is gone. That way, if you do get sick, you will have someone to do it on you, and the flu wonâ(TM)t be fatal.
Here are two good sources on how to to PP&D.
http://www.phoenixchildrens.com/emily-center/child-health-topics/handouts/CPT-55b.pdf
http://www.questdiagnostics.com/kbase/as/ug1720/how.htm
The chances of these proteins from bird, avian flu combining with a swine retro virus that is easily transmittable is astronomical.
How many generations does a typical virus go through in a very short period of time? You forget that "evolutionary" time is vastly sped up for our bacterial and viral friends. In the amount of time it took me to type this paragraph these bugger probably went through a couple hundred generations, and spawned untold mutations. Thats why viruses are so hard to fight. This is especially true with influenza, which is why we don't have a "cure" for it yet.
Sometimes viruses win the genetic lottery too, especially when they get to go through billions of iterations each year. The odds of HIV/AIDs jumping from primates to a human form was also astronomical, as was the original swine flu, but I doubt that anyone would posit those as cases of biological weapons gone wrong.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
sorry, direct link
http://www.google.org/flutrends/
Living in Chile
The Influenza of 1918 Killed two to three times as many people as died in World War I, in just two years. Tens of millions of people died in 2 years.
http://virus.stanford.edu/uda/
Speaking from my nursing background here (20+ years as Registered Nurse in Intensive Care, Emergency Room, and medical wards).
Postural drainage and percussion (PD&P) are appropriate when the "fluid in the lungs" is in the bronchial tree, as in cystic fibrosis and some kinds of bronchitis. It will do no good in pneumonia and may cause greater harm.
In pneumonia the dangerous fluid is not within the lumens of the bronchial tree where it could be coughed out; it is the walls of the tree that are swollen with excess interstitial fluid that is the danger. The swelling increases the distance between the air sacs and blood vessels, and as it progresses, it collapses the air sacs. So you don't have gobs of stuff blocking the lungs; you've got less working lung area.
If you start to come down with the flu a good plan would be to avoid exercise or any activity that would increase your O2 demand and your CO2 production. Spend your awake time mostly sitting, and rest in a semi-recumbent position rather than flat in bed. Do deep breathing exercises every half hour or so to help keep airways open. Go with sedentary activities like reading, watching tv, working on improving your slashdot karma, and so on. And remember that the hardware of your mind is now compromised by the illness, so you are not as sharp as usual, your judgment may be bad, and there are going to be more bugs in your code and logic.
Will
Mans living in close proximity with foul and swine - usually under conditions of extreme poverty and in China, is what cause flues to cross the species barrer and become zoodemic. Airplane travel causes them to go pandemic.
You don't need labs to create new and deadly flu viruses when the poor have been crowdsourcing this for eons.
Need Mercedes parts ?