Medical Minute: Swine Flu
The swine flu outbreak in Mexico is caused by a deadly new strain, or variant, of a particular strain of influenza virus that is naturally occurring among pigs. This strain mutated over time and jumped from pigs to humans. It is now transferred easily from human to human through coughing, sneezing, touching and through contact with the nasal and oral mucosa.
Swine flu transmission cannot occur through eating pork. There is no known cure for a virus other than a vaccine, which is usually made from a part of the virus itself. There is no vaccine for swine flu, and antibiotics are ineffective against a virus.
Swine flu kills relatively quickly, and it affects mainly the young and healthy. The mean age range of the 149 deaths reported in Mexico is between 20-40 years old.
So far outbreaks are being reported in New York (28 cases), California (7), Texas (2), Kansas (2), Ohio (1). Canada is reporting 6 cases, and there are 19 cases reported worldwide — not including Mexico.
The signs and symptoms of swine flu to look out for are similar to the flu:
- Fever
- Chills
- Runny nose
- Cough
- Fatigue (feeling unusually tired)
- Sore throat
- Joint pain
The symptoms progress quickly to nausea, vomiting, disorientation and confusion ending in death.
Information on the web:
Flu cases in the United States - USA Today
This entry was posted on Monday, April 27th, 2009 at 4:55 pm and filed under Health & medicine, Medical Minute, World News/Events . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed or Trackback from your own site. This site is Gravatar enabled. Sign up to upload your own avatar.
11 Responses to “Medical Minute: Swine Flu”
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im concerned NY has it so deep, but they said its mostly highschool students that went to Mexico for spring break! hopefully we can get this contained before it turns into 28 days later
I’m off to the store to get a face mask
those kids should be quarrantined. I know it probably sounds severe, but if they know ahead of time, why not try to nip it in the bud, now?
lol @ 28 days later…RAGE VIRUS. What’s going to happen is people are going to start acting a fool and rioting and that will probably do more damage than the flu itself.
Alls I can say is shoot for the head - zombies can go down for good if you shoot em in the head.
i agree…. all of NY can come with it, and im in philly we’d be next….lock them up….. before it turns into I am Legend……(i watch too many movies)
OMG this is breaking news from my city
PHILADELPHIA - April 27, 2009 - (WPVI) — A sick woman was removed from a plane at Philadelphia International Airport on Monday afternoon.
The aircraft, U.S. Airways Flight 804, flew in from Cancun, Mexico at around 4:00 p.m. The crew radioed in to say there was a health emergency onboard.
Authorities say the sick person on the flight was exhibiting “flu-like” symptoms.
Officials met at the gate and examined the 24 year-old woman.
WTF!!!
Thanks for the medical update Sandra. I am in NC and my 14 year old is home sick with flu like symptoms. Got me nervous and scared to death. She probably does have the flu but with all this stuff going around, it just makes me nervous!!
6spongebobfan Says:
OMG this is breaking news from my city
PHILADELPHIA - April 27, 2009 - (WPVI) — A sick woman was removed from a plane at Philadelphia International Airport on Monday afternoon.
The aircraft, U.S. Airways Flight 804, flew in from Cancun, Mexico at around 4:00 p.m. The crew radioed in to say there was a health emergency onboard.
Authorities say the sick person on the flight was exhibiting “flu-like” symptoms.
Officials met at the gate and examined the 24 year-old woman.
WTF!!!
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i too am in Philly, and the NY outbreaks are scary enough but now there was an incident here!? see now…. i definitely see a ‘28 days later’ ‘resident evil’ type of pandemic rising…
dag, my beautician is over in mexico on vacation…won’t be back until this weekend. i’m going to have to make sure she’s not sick before i go back to the hairdresser!!
well i heard there is a cure and that there are 2 vaccines for it and that they have enough to supply 50 million people with…sooooo imma hold on to that lil hope and the fact that i have God in my life and see what happens
I agree Tia…….”It is Written”
If thats the way my story or my children’s story ends than so be it, just so long as its well with GOD. Its scary all the same, but we have to “walk by faith”. Lets pray for the CDC to come up with a cure. Our prayers are the strongest weapon we have against things we can not control.