Swine Flu Questions

[sharkbit]

Driving into work this morning, I heard about the first death in the US attributed to swine flu. It was a 23 month old child in Texas.

I know that the elderly and the very young are always high risk when it comes to flu, but I started wondering what the annual death rate of the elderly and very young for your "normal, everyday strain" of flu is that doesn't make the news?

Is this swine flu story just another thing that the media is blowing way out of proportion to scare everyone and get ratings when x number of people die evey year from the flu anyways?

Just wondering. I might try try to some digging for statistics later today if I have a chance.

[TDK1044]

During a typical year in the US, 30,000 to 50,000 people die as a result of influenza viral infection. About 5-10% of hospitalizations for influenza lead to fatal outcome in adults. Although most influenza infection is in children, the serious morbidity and mortality is almost entirely among elderly people with underlying chronic disease.

Taking this into account, the current media frenzy over this new variant of influenza would be amusing if the subject matter was not so serious.

If you are are an adult in a normal state of health and your immune system is not compromised, swine flu is NOT going to kill you.

[NeonSamurai]

You should say not likely to kill you. Though it is highly unlikely it could well happen (and probably has already killed some healthy adults).

Frankly this reminds me very much of the SARS panic.

[SteamWake]

I truley hope that the 'panic' is being blown out of scale by the media hyperbole.

But what might be behind all this media blitz on this... yet another... pandemic panic. Is it just to get viewers/readers? Is there an ulterior motive?

Healthcare is on the agenda.

[Digital_Trucker]

Originally Posted by SteamWake

I truley hope that the 'panic' is being blown out of scale by the media hyperbole.

But what might be behind all this media blitz on this... yet another... pandemic panic. Is it just to get viewers/readers? Is there an ulterior motive?

Healthcare is on the agenda.

Nah, the government would never use scare tactics to accomplish anything on its agenda

Disclaimer : Please note that the above opinion does not call out either party for the use of scare tactics. Both parties are very well practiced in the use of fear to accomplish pet projects

[Max2147]

Originally Posted by TDK1044

If you are are an adult in a normal state of health and your immune system is not compromised, swine flu is NOT going to kill you.

Not necessarily true. The Spanish flu was MORE lethal to young, healthy adults. There are *unconfirmed* signs that the same may be true for the current Swine Flu.

The reason the Spanish flu was like that was because the disease caused the patient's immune system to go into uncontrolled overdrive. It was sort of like an infinite loop in computer programming. If your immune system was strong enough, it could kill you. That's why healthy, young adults with strong immune systems were most at risk of dying, while older or sickly people had a better chance of surviving. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytokine_storm

There is speculation that the same trend may be true for the current flu: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/25/wo.../25mexico.html

However, all this is SPECULATION and UNCONFIRMED. I am not a medical expert, so don't take my word on this.

[Platapus]

To answer the OP's question, about 80 to 90 children in the US die each year due to Influenza.

[sharkbit]

Found this yesterday:
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/

Kinda interesting.

[TDK1044]

Uneducated panic is far more dangerous than this flu.

[longam]

Originally Posted by TDK1044

During a typical year in the US, 30,000 to 50,000 people die as a result of influenza viral infection. About 5-10% of hospitalizations for influenza lead to fatal outcome in adults. Although most influenza infection is in children, the serious morbidity and mortality is almost entirely among elderly people with underlying chronic disease.

I would love to see the data you found on that. This is interesting to see the difference.

[Platapus]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/29...flu/index.html

Good advice from the Acting Director of the CDC


"However, he [acting director of the CDC] stressed that people should maintain their perspective on the swine flu outbreak.

"Seasonal flu each year causes tens of thousands of deaths in this country -- on average, about 36,000 deaths," Besser said. "And so this flu virus in the United States, as we're looking at it, is not acting very differently from what we saw during the flu season."

[Platapus]

I think it is high time we cut the pigs a little slack here. They are getting a bum deal

http://www.oie.int/eng/press/en_090427.htm

A virus circulating in Mexico and the USA and involving person to person transmission appears to cause in some cases severe disease in certain people infected by this virus. There is no evidence that this virus is transmitted by food.

It is not a classical human influenza virus called seasonal influenza, which causes every year millions of human cases of influenza worldwide but a virus which includes in its characteristics swine, avian and human virus components.

No current information in influenza like animal disease in Mexico or the USA could support a link between human cases and possible animal cases including swine. The virus has not been isolated in animals to date. Therefore, it is not justified to name this disease swine influenza. In the past, many human influenza epidemics with animal origin have been named using geographic name, eg Spanish influenza or Asiatic influenza, thus it would be logical to call this disease “North-American influenza”.

Urgent scientific research must be started in order to know the susceptibility of animals to this new virus, and if relevant to implement biosecurity measures including possible vaccination to protect susceptible animals. If this virus would be shown to cause disease in animals, virus circulation could worsen the regional and global situation for public health.

Currently, only findings related to the circulation of this virus in pigs in zones of countries having human cases would justify trade measures on the importation of pigs from these countries. The OIE will continue its alert function and will publish in relation with its Members, Reference Laboratories and Collaborating Centres all appropriate information in real time.

OIE and FAO underline the great value of the influenza veterinary laboratory network called OFFLU, in charge of the surveillance of the evolution of influenza viruses in animals. There is a strong need to reinforce this network whose members are urged to put immediately in the public domain any genetic sequence of influenza virus they obtain.

This influenza event underlines in all countries the crucial importance of maintaining worldwide veterinary services able to implement in animals early detection of relevant emerging pathogens with a potential public health impact. This capacity is fully linked with veterinary services good governance and their compliance with OIE international standards of quality.

[Skybird]

Maybe I miss a vital point, but somehow this swine flu thing leaves me totally unimpressed currently.

I will start worrying when the virus mutates and the new form proves to be very dangerous, and/or indicates a higher resistance against the currently functioning drugs there are.

Mexico has reduced the number of related deaths drastically (from over 150 to below 10, they said on TV this evening), due to possible misdiagnosing patients. That may explain why the death rate is so high there, while the virus did little lethal damage in other countries so far.

The thing may be highly infectous, but keep your perspective. A real lethal monster pandemic is something very different. When the virus mutates, then we talk again.

[Raptor1]

I say it is all a direct result of the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids

[TDK1044]

The next thing that will happen is that a swine flu shot will be developed, and millions of people who don't need it will be causing mass panic by lining up for it. More people will be killed in the stampede than ever would have been killed by the swine flu. Pathetic.