Swine Flu Epidemic Global Terror

[G0NE2W4R 0]

The terrifying Swine Flu that had recently affected major population areas has now spread all the way across the Pacific Ocean from Mexico City to New Zealand.

 

The following video can say the rest :

 

Edited April 27, 2009 by G0NE2W4R

[Malevolence 6]

Damn it, I was about to post this important news thread and you did it earlier than me.

 

Mexico fights swine flu with 'pandemic potential'

 

MEXICO CITY – Mexico's president assumed new powers Saturday to isolate people infected with a deadly swine flu strain as authorities struggled to contain an outbreak that world health officials warned could become a global epidemic.

 

New cases of swine flu were confirmed in Kansas and California and suspected in New York City. But officials said they didn't know whether the New York cases were the strain that now has killed up to 81 people in Mexico and likely sickened 1,324 since April 13, according to figures updated late Saturday by Mexico's health secretary.

 

Only 20 deaths have been confirmed in Mexico.

 

Mexican authorities ordered schools closed in the capital and the states of Mexico and San Luis Potosi until May 6.

 

Mexican soldiers and health workers patrolled airports and bus stations as they tried to corral people who may be infected with the swine flu, as it became clearer that the government may have been slow to respond to the outbreak in March and early April.

 

Now, even detaining the ill may not keep the strain — a combination of swine, bird and human influenza that people may have no natural immunity to — from spreading, epidemiologists say.

 

The World Health Organization on Saturday asked countries around the world to step up reporting and surveillance of the disease and implement a coordinated response to contain it.

 

Two dozen new suspected cases were reported in Mexico City alone, where authorities suspended schools and all public events until further notice. More than 500 concerts, sporting events and other gatherings were canceled in the metropolis of 20 million.

 

The Mexican government issued a decree authorizing President Felipe Calderon to invoke special powers letting the Health Department isolate patients and inspect homes, incoming travelers and baggage.

 

Officials said the decree gives clear legal authority to Health Department workers who might otherwise face reprisals.

 

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.

 

A team from the Centers for Disease Control has arrived in Mexico to work with its counterparts to limit the outbreak, the U.S. Embassy said in a statement.

 

The embassy said the U.S. has not imposed travel constraints to and from Mexico but is suspending the processing of visas and other services through Wednesday to avoid creating crowds.

 

It issued an earlier message advising U.S. citizens to avoid large crowds, shaking hands, greeting people with a kiss or using the subway.

 

But with confirmed swine flu cases in at least six states — and possibly as many as 14 — the efforts seemed unlikely to stop the spread of the disease.

 

Particularly difficult in a metropolis as crowded as Mexico City was the embassy's advice to maintain "a distance of at least 6 feet from other persons may decrease the risk of exposure."

 

WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said the outbreak of the never-before-seen virus has "pandemic potential." But she said it is still too early to tell if it would become a pandemic.

 

"The situation is evolving quickly," Chan said in Geneva. "A new disease is by definition poorly understood."

 

WHO lays out three criteria necessary for a global epidemic to occur: The virus is able to infect people, can readily spread person-to-person and the global population has no immunity to it. Out of the many cases in Mexico reported, relatively few samples have been tested.

 

Early detection and treatment are key to stopping any outbreak. WHO guidance calls for isolating the sick and blanketing everyone around them with anti-viral 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.

 

Health authorities started noticing a threefold spike in flu cases in late March and early April, but they thought it was a late rebound in the December-February flu season.

 

Testing at domestic labs did not alert doctors here to the new strain, although U.S. authorities detected an outbreak in California and Texas last week.

 

Perhaps spurred by the U.S. discoveries, Mexico sent 14 mucous samples to the CDC April 18 and dispatched health teams to hospitals looking for patients with severe flu or pnuemonia-like symptoms.

 

Those teams noticed something strange: The flu was killing people aged 20 to 40. Flu victims are usually either infants or the elderly. The Spanish flu pandemic, which killed at least 40 million people worldwide in 1918-19, also first struck otherwise healthy young adults.

 

As recently as Wednesday, authorities were referring to it as a late-season flu.

 

But mid-afternoon Thursday, Mexico City Health Secretary Dr. Armando Ahued said, officials got a call "from the United States and Canada, the most important laboratories in the field, telling us this was a new virus."

 

"That was what led us to realize it wasn't a seasonal virus ... and take more serious preventative measures," Health Secretary Jose Cordova said.

 

Some Mexicans suspected the government had been less than forthcoming. "They always make a big deal about good things that happen, but they really try to hide anything bad," Mexico City paralegal Gilberto Martinez said.

 

Hospitals dealt with crowds of people seeking help. A hot line fielded 2,366 calls in its first hours from frightened city residents who suspected they might have the disease.

 

Doctors reported that anti-viral medications and even steroids were working well against the disease, noting no new deaths had been reported in the capital in the last day.

 

Airports around the world were screening travelers from Mexico for flu symptoms. But containing the disease may not be an option.

 

"Anything that would be about containing it right now would purely be a political move," said Michael Osterholm, a University of Minnesota pandemic expert.

 

Ahued, the capital's health secretary, said Mexico City may not even be the epicenter of the outbreak.

 

"The country's best health care facilities are concentrated in the city," he said. "All the cases here get reported, that's why the number is so high."

 

Scientists have warned for years about the potential for a pandemic from viruses that mix genetic material from humans and animals.

 

This swine flu and regular flu can have similar symptoms — mostly fever, cough and sore throat, though some of the U.S. victims who recovered also experienced vomiting and diarrhea. But unlike with regular flu, humans don't have natural immunity to a virus that includes animal genes — and new vaccines can take months to bring into use.

 

The same virus also sickened at least 11 people in the United States, though there have been no deaths north of the border.

 

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment on Saturday confirmed two cases of swine flu in two adults in the same household. One of the patients had recently traveled to Mexico. Another eight students at a New York City high school probably have human swine influenza, but health officials said they don't know for sure whether it is the same strain.

 

A "seed stock" genetically matched to the new swine flu virus has been created by the CDC, said Dr. Richard Besser, the agency's acting director. If the government decides vaccine production is necessary, manufacturers would need that stock to get started.

 

None of that provided any easy answers to Mexico City residents, who reacted with fatalism and confusion, anger and mounting fear at the idea that their city may be ground zero for a global epidemic.

 

Outside Hospital Obregon in the capital's middle-class Roma district, a tired Dr. Roberto Ortiz, 59, leaned against an ambulance and sipped coffee Saturday on a break from an unusually busy shift.

 

"The people are scared," Ortiz said. "A person gets some flu symptoms or a child gets a fever and they think it is this swine flu and rush to the hospital."

 

He said none of the cases so far at the hospital had turned out to be swine flu.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090425/ap_on_...a/med_swine_flu

 

Minister: 10 NZ students 'likely' have swine flu

 

Sun Apr 26, 4:25 am ET

 

WELLINGTON, New Zealand – New Zealand's health minister says 10 students who were recently in Mexico have tested positive for influenza. He said the cases are "likely" to be swine flu.

 

Tony Ryall said there was "no guarantee" the students had swine flu, but that health officials were taking precautions.

 

Ryall said Sunday that none of the patients were seriously ill and seemed to be recovering.

 

He says 13 high school students who returned from Mexico early Saturday were tested for swine influenza, and 10 had positive results.

 

The results were sent to the World Health Organization lab in Melbourne, Australia.

 

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

 

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Twenty-five students and teachers in New Zealand, some with flu-like symptoms, were quarantined and tested for swine flu after returning from a trip to Mexico, officials said Sunday, as Asia stepped up surveillance for the deadly virus.

 

At least 81 people have died from severe pneumonia caused by a flu-like illness in Mexico, according to the World Health Organization, which declared the virus a public health emergency of "pandemic potential."

 

The group from New Zealand's largest high school returned to the northern city of Auckland on Saturday on a flight from Los Angeles. Thirteen students and one teacher were unwell and one student had to be hospitalized, said Auckland Regional Public Health Services director Dr. Julia Peters.

 

Health Ministry spokesman Michael Flyger said some had symptoms of an influenza-like illness and the test results were expected later Sunday.

 

At this stage other passengers on the flight were not being sought and the next step would depend on what the tests showed, he said.

 

Mexico has closed schools, museums, libraries and theaters in a bid to contain the outbreak, which may have sickened about 1,000 people there.

 

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, WHO said.

 

U.S. authorities said 11 people were infected with swine flu, and all recovered or are recovering and at least two were hospitalized.

 

"It would be prudent for health officials within countries to be alert to outbreaks of influenza-like illness or pneumonia, especially if these occur in months outside the usual peak influenza season," WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said in Geneva on Saturday.

 

"Another important signal is excess cases of severe or fatal flu-like illness in groups other than young children and the elderly, who are usually at highest risk during normal seasonal flu," she said, adding, "the situation is evolving quickly."

 

Elsewhere in Asia, Japan's biggest international airport stepped up health surveillance, while the Philippines said it may quarantine passengers with fevers who have been to Mexico. Health authorities in Thailand and Hong Kong said they were closely monitoring the situation.

 

China said anyone experiencing flu-like symptoms within two weeks of arriving in the country from swine-flu affected territories was required to report to authorities.

 

Australia's Department of Health and Aging urged anyone who had returned from Mexico with influenza-like symptoms since March to seek advice from their doctors.

 

Malaysia and other Asian nations said they were awaiting further advice from WHO.

 

At Tokyo's Narita airport — among the world's busiest with more than 96,000 people using it daily — officials installed a device at the arrival gate for flights from Mexico to measure the temperatures of passengers.

 

A Health Ministry official said the government will monitor conditions of people returning from Mexico with their consent.

 

Agriculture Minister Shigeru Ishiba appeared on TV to calm consumers, saying it was safe to eat pork.

 

"Whether it's domestic or imported pork, pork is sanitized when being shipped" to supermarkets, Ishiba told TV Asahi. "It's perfectly safe to eat pork."

 

Asia has grappled in recent years with the H5N1 bird flu virus, which has killed at least 257 people worldwide since late 2003, according to WHO. Nearly 45 percent of the global bird flu deaths have occurred in Indonesia, with 115 fatalities.

 

Scientists have warned for years about the potential for a pandemic caused by viruses that mix genetic material from humans and animals.

 

No vaccine specifically protects against swine flu, and it is unclear how much protection current human flu vaccines might offer.

 

___

 

Associated Press writers Shino Yuasa in Tokyo, Gillian Wong in Beijing, Oliver Teves in Manila, Dikky Sinn in Hong Kong, Grant Peck in Bangkok, Julia Zappei in Kuala Lumpur, and Kristen Gelineau in Sydney contributed to this report.

 

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090426/ap_on_...ine_flu_world_5

[Nmenth 291]

Great, more of this nonsense... I tire of these 'global terrors'. I hate the world's obsession with living in fear of what could be.

When the death toll reaches one million, I'll start caring. Seriously, it isn't even triple digits yet...

[TheBlackOut 7]

Great, more of this nonsense... I tire of these 'global terrors'. I hate the world's obsession with living in fear of what could be.

When the death toll reaches one million, I'll start caring. Seriously, it isn't even triple digits yet...

Yep, me too. Anyone remember SARS? Bird flu? So.. when did that kill millions? Oh wait, it didn't. I'm ****ing tired of the media fear mongering for ratings.

 

Oh btw, everyone get to Madagascar, it can't spread there!

[Nmenth 291]

Anyone remember SARS? Bird flu? So.. when did that kill millions? Oh wait, it didn't.

Don't forget West Nile Virus.

[Sonic 296]

Ah yes another "pandemic". Such an over used buzz word

 

Does the media have nothing better to report on? Another week or so and you probably won't hear anything about this Swine Flu news because the media will latch onto something else that no one really gives a **** about.

[Doctor Destiny 41]

Well no. This really is a big deal since it could very well spread like the others before. However, I agree that they should not be billing this as an OMG PANDEMIC already. It's an epidemic for sure but nothing like true pandemics, which did claim over several hundred thousand.

 

That said, this is newsworthy but not terror worthy.

[TheBlackOut 7]

I agree, it should definitely be reported on. It has potential to be something horrible but... They always fear monger instead of being reasonable about it.

 

They could go "Well there's a new strain of flu and it's spreading. We'll keep you updated and try to stay safe" but instead they go down the "CHRIST! PEOPLE DYING ALREADY! DROPPING LIKE FLIES! HOLY ****, THIS IS SPREADING!!! PANIC PEOPLE, PANIC! ESPECIALLY YOU MEXICANS!"

 

=/

[Mighty BOB! 5]

The media have no shame.

 

Also I have never heard of the swine flu.

[Renamon 0]

The Chalet - Let's Just Hope We All Die Happy

Edited June 24, 2011 by Renamon

[Nmenth 291]

Right, because every year...

 

- Surgical masks are handed out in Mexico

Handing out masks for every pandemic scare has rather become tradition.

 

- The Mexican president declares state of emergency

- Students suspected of this flu are being tested here in the USA

- NY Governor called for state of emergency on swine flu

They can declare emergencies for a feral grapefruit rampage, doesn't mean anything more than politicians grasping for attention.

 

- All schools in Mexico are canceled until May 6th

- Some Texas schools have been closed (might not be the case anymore)

Schools are obligated to overreact, they would on the receiving end of a lot of flak if they didn't.

 

- Confirmed in France, Spain, Israel, Canada, USA, Mexico, New Zealand,

Don't know where you got that information, but it is inaccurate. Replace 'suspected' for 'confirmed', it takes time to analyze.

 

HAPPENS EVERY YEAR, NO NEED TO WORRY

Actually Swine Flu is an annual occurrence, this is only a new strain of it.

 

If this wasn't such a huge deal, then why is the world overreacting? Oh, it must be a media creation.

Overreacting is what the media does best, it sells and a lot of people take it all in.

 

Also, there's another article where a Mexico City doctor said the real number of deaths is past 200. (which is a lot in 2 weeks with only 1000 reported cases)I'll see if I can find it again.

He is making up numbers, probably to get in the spotlight.

[Renamon 0]

way to miss the sarcasm nmeth . i can see the beginnings of an internet slap fight so i'll stop. k?

[Nmenth 291]

way to miss the sarcasm nmeth . i can see the beginnings of an internet slap fight so i'll stop. k?

It's always hard to tell whether you're serious or not... Your portrayal of the gullible was too well played. I did consider you could have been joking due to the pictures and your tendency to tell less than the truth, but I couldn't resist replying to your post. By the way, there are two N's in Nmenth.

[Luk3us 63]

Yaa we are all going to die...

 

AGAIN...

 

When zombies start walking around, then and only then, may I be concerned. Otherwise, eh.

[Malevolence 6]

woah... didn't expect such replies, some of the folks here need to chill down here.

 

[BioBen 3]

Anyway, acording to mother (who's in charge of funding and crap at the local hospital) all possible cases have been dismissed in nz apart from a few in auckland which are still yet to be done, after that were in the clear.

[TheBlackOut 7]

Well, a few schools in the city right near me are closing down. Epic, hopefully some kid at my school will get it.

 

Also,

[Malevolence 6]

I cant see the link, TheBlackOut.

[Nmenth 291]

I cant see the link, TheBlackOut.

He didn't insert the YouTube code properly as seems to be a trend around here, Sonic might as well just change it to require the whole link...

 

Anyway, you aren't missing much, it's kind of lame.

Edited May 4, 2009 by Nmenth

[Malevolence 6]

Thanks for the fix. Anyways the media has done a terrific work on the N1H1 scare to the masses. It's funny to see the people starting to take precautions when its just too late.

[Doctor Destiny 41]

There's not much precaution to take really. See a doctor when you feel ill and you should be fine. The swine flu is no more dangerous than the Influenza A strain really. It seems a tad less dangerous except for it's contagious nature.

[rEdaSbLood 1]

news in nyc announced that schools can reopen and the swine flu is no more threatening than regular flu.

 

 

LULZ

[Malevolence 6]

news in nyc announced that schools can reopen and the swine flu is no more threatening than regular flu.

 

 

LULZ

 

Love the incredible media hype. It's like watching a comedy sitcom. Hilarious.

[Doctor Destiny 41]

The hype is overblown but it is an important story nonetheless.

[rEdaSbLood 1]

true it is nice to see that my country is alert even to something like this that turned out to be pretty mediocre.

 

but, like with the economy it just scares people a bit too much.