Swine Flu Hits Mexico and US
Saturday, April 25, 2009 11:01**Updates at bottom of post**
Mexico City has shut down schools and large public gatherings in hopes pof containing a serious strain of swine flu that has been identified throughout Mexico and in two US states. While numbers vary between sources, it is estimated that more than 1,000 people throughout Mexico are sick with symptoms that are consistent with the swine flu, and there have been 20 confirmed swine flu deaths. Nearly 50 other deaths are suspected to have been caused by this flu strain.
According to a CDC press briefing on April 24th, there had already been 8 confirmed cases of swine flu in California and Texas. Thankfully, none of these has been fatal.
The swine flu is unique from typical flus because the deaths have been among healthy young people and adults. Frighteningly, this is a characteristic the swine flu shares with the deadly 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, which probably killed by inducing a cytokine storm in the healthy immune systems of young adults. Usually, influenza is most dangerous to the very young and very old, as well as those who are ill or have compromised immune systems.
At this point, the CDC says that the best way to protect yourself is good handwashing. The CDC reports that Tamiflu and Relenza do seem effective against the new strain if they are given in the very early stages of the disease. Roche, the maker of Tamiflu, said they are prepared to immediately deploy a stockpile of the drug if needed.
If you’d like to follow the lates information on the swine flu from the CDC, you can follow their Twitter stream, or subscribe to their swine flu updates RSS feed.
Update 4-25-09: Since I published this article today, two more cases of the swine flu have been confirmed in Kansas. Additionally, students at a New York prep school have been diagnosed with an untypeable strain of influenza A. Further testing should be able to determine whether this is also swine flu by sometime on Sunday.
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Nomad says:
April 26th, 2009 at 2:05 am
this is definitely scary stuff, sounds a lot more serious than the peanut butter salmonella scares at the very least