I don't expect it to be another Spanish Flu, but the main reason is that we are much more aggressive about fighting diseases like this today. I don't have a problem with governments treating this very seriously to prevent it from becoming a catastrophic problem.
You can do the pretty much the same thing to prevent the regular flu. 1. Wash your hands. Often. Don't touch your face with your hands. 2. Stay away from sick people. 3. Maintain general health, eat well, etc. If you have flu like symptoms: go to the Doctor. Tests have already shown that the swine flu responds very well to flu treatments such as Tamiflu if treated early. The biggest thing is to be smart, and don't panic. Most of the cases outside of Mexico have been mild, and if medical treatment is administered quickly, it runs its course like any case of the flu.
it would have to be something massive to kill that many. but we're certainly more prone to pandemics now than we were then....air travel moves bugs around pretty quickly.
totally agree...typically i wouldn't go to the doctor if i caught the flu....but if i did now (particularly with the close of typical flu season already) you can bet i'd be seeing the doc. as for tamiflu, sounds like it hasn't been used with respect to actual patients...just in a lab with the strain: http://blogs.chron.com/sciguy/archives/2009/04/post_79.html • How effective will antiviral medications such as Tamiflu be? "We're not really sure how effective antivirals will be in treating or preventing this strain of swine flu," Bradley said. When researchers put the swine flu strain in a culture dish, certain antiviral drugs stop it from growing. But it's not clear how effective the drugs will be against treating or preventing swine flu in the real world.
Max: you may have a point about the Tamiflu, but I swear I read or saw on TV someone from the WHO saying they are recommending treatment with Tamiflu and some other antiviral and results have been positive. I guess that may be the lab results. Anyways: I predict mortality rates that are low for folks that seek early medical treatment. The biggest danger out of these influenzas are that they cause pneumonia (which can be fatal) or they cause a worsening or pre-existing conditions: all of which can be treated/prevented by proper medical help. Some article was claiming that there may be many more swine flu cases out there, and may have been out there for months, and its just now getting notice because of the bigger outbreak in Mexico. It may be very possible that hundreds, if not thousands have already had this flu, recovered, and never knew the flu they had was swine flu.
Basic precautionary measures as with anything flu related include: covering nose and mouth during coughing or sneezing washing hands thorougly afterwards avoiding contact with eyes, nose, mouth, etc staying away from those with flu-like symptoms I think one of the most important things is for those with flu-like symptoms (e.g. fever >100 and cough and/or sore throat) to stay at home and not go into work/school. Go to your doctor and follow with his recommendations.
Yeah, this flu is different from the typical A/B strains we have each fall/winter, though. Like with the Spanish Flu (which I also understand was a bird-swine-human strain) the mortality rates are higher among the healthiest in the population....because it's your bodies response (excess mucus produced) that ultimately is the killer. Very different from the typical flu which kills finds higher mortality rates among babies and elderly.
I think that's wrong. I think they estimate that it killed 2.5 - 5.0 % of the worlds population. Not that it killed 2.5% of the people that got it. "The global mortality rate from the 1918/1919 pandemic is not known, but is estimated at 2.5 to 5% of the human population, with 20% or more of the world population suffering from the disease to some extent. Influenza may have killed as many as 25 million in its first 25 weeks. Older estimates say it killed 40–50 million people[3] while current estimates say 50 million to 100 million people worldwide were killed.[14] This pandemic has been described as "the greatest medical holocaust in history" and may have killed more people than the Black Death." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu Edit: Well as I read through that wiki it says that between 2 - 20% of infected people died. That's nice and broad. Freakin' wikipedia.
This is what I'm thinking. Not trying to rationalize it and marginalize the issue. I had a "killer" case of soar throat, nausea, weakness in the body, ear aches, some kinda sickness weeks ago and missed work. As did a coworker of mine with the same stuff. A lady that does work for us said her son kept having a persistant fever that didnt get better for a week. All flu like symptons except for the ear part.. Its all coincidence and not saying anyone had swine flu. Just that there was an apparent bug going around that people contracted and recovered from. And who knows could very well have been a mild strain. Sucks that you only hear about these things only after several people show symptoms and death from it.... Tiime to recommend more work-at-home telecommuting
I read Wiki on this before I posted, but I've seen shows on this before...and read some other sites as well: http://virus.stanford.edu/uda/ The influenza virus had a profound virulence, with a mortality rate at 2.5% compared to the previous influenza epidemics, which were less than 0.1%. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/02/0205_040205_spanishflu.html The disease was exceptionally severe, with mortality rates of 2.5 percent among those infected, compared to less than 0.1 percent in other influenza epidemics. The 20% numbers seem WAY overblown, given other influenza epidemics...and it's Wiki after all!
40,000,000/2,000,000,000=2% if they say it killed 20 to 50 million, 50 million would be only a little less than 1% of today's population
yeah, i'm having a difficult time discerning all those numbers. that National Geographic link literally says 2.5% mortality rate among those infected. the wikipedia link looks like it vomited statistics, some of which don't match up. i did find this which seems to have lots and lots of interesting data about it, some of it broken down by country: http://answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=threadview&id=196121
