So, whats going on here?
Well, a new flu is going around. Check any new organization, they should all be covering this by now. For an up-to-date compendium of what the media is saying, check out the
wikipedia article on the subject here. They've got the usual charts, graphs and assorted stuff. The
World Health Organization is a UN run org that deals with this sort of thing internationally. They know what they're talking about.
This is a new strain of swine flu (a flu that spreads primarily through pigs). Its a Type A influenza, subtype H1N1. Nope, not H5N1, thats bird flu. This new strain is worrying people because it seems to have elements of pig, bird and human flu in it. The combination has not been observed before. This version has jumped from pigs to humans, and from there is able to jump from human to human.
I keep hearing this word "pandemic". Seems a bit... ominous, doesn't it?
Well, it is a bit ominous. Pandemic
doesn't mean "kills millions of people". The WHO says there are 3 criteria that need to be met for something to be considered pandemic:
* Emergence of a disease new to a population.
* Agents infect humans, causing serious illness.
* Agents spread easily and sustainably among humans.
Serious illness does not imply fatal, so don't get worried when the word
PANDEMIC flashes on your TV screen.
How worried should I be?
Frankly, if you're asking this question you're probably way too worried already. If you're in Mexico, be worried. Most cases internationally have been mild so far. For advice on how to handle this situation
listen to your local health authority. They know whats going on better than anyone, and know what to do about it. They're doing a good job so far (internationally at least) so don't ignore them.
I have the taint! Am I going to turn into a pig?
This is a flu, if you have it, you'll feel like you have the flu.
If you think you have it, stay home. Don't go to the hospital unless you would under normal circumstances.
Symptoms include:
* Extreme coldness and fever
* Body aches, especially joints and throat
* Fatigue
* Headache
* Irritated watering eyes
* Reddened eyes, skin (especially face), mouth, throat and nose
Pretty standard stuff. You get it and spread it mostly by coughing and sneezing on people. Thats why you see pictures of people wearing face masks. Avoid getting sick by avoiding people who are sick, and frequently washing your hands. If you're sick, cough and sneeze into your arm or a tissue, and wash your hands after. Really, this helps a huge amount, regardless of if you have swine flu or a common cold.
Why is this so much more lethal in Mexico?
Nobody really knows. Something that can change with time as well. As this is a new strain, not much is known about it yet.
Cytokine storm? Didn't the Enterprise fly through one of those in one episode?http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2009/04/swine_flu_and_deaths_in_health.php
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Original OP below
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"Mexico flu deaths raise worries of global epidemic"
MEXICO CITY (AP) — At least 16 people — and possibly dozens more — have died from a swine flu virus in Mexico, and world health officials worry it could unleash a global flu epidemic. Mexico City closed schools across the metropolis Friday in hopes of containing the outbreak, and tougher measures were being considered.
Scientists were trying to determine if the deaths involved the same new strain of swine flu that sickened seven people in Texas and California — a disturbing disease that combines pig, bird and human viruses in a way that researchers have not seen before.
The World Health Organization counted at least 57 deaths in Mexico, but said it wasn't yet clear what flu they died from.
"We are very, very concerned," WHO spokesman Thomas Abraham said. "We have what appears to be a novel virus and it has spread from human to human."
WHO raised its internal alert system Friday, enabling the agency to divert more money and personnel to dealing with the outbreak. "It's all hands on deck at the moment." Abraham said.
Scientists have long been concerned that a new flu virus could launch a pandemic, a worldwide spread of a killer disease. A new virus could evolve when different flu viruses infect a pig, a person or a bird, mingling their genetic material. The resulting hybrid could spread quickly because people would have no natural defenses against it.
The most notorious flu pandemic is thought to have killed at least 40 million people worldwide in 1918-19. Two other, less deadly flu pandemics struck in 1957 and 1968.
Nobody can predict when pandemics will happen. Scientists had been concerned about swine flu in 1976, for example, and some 40 million Americans were vaccinated. No flu pandemic ever appeared, but thousands of vaccinated people filed claims saying they'd suffered a paralyzing condition andother side effects from the shots.
In recent years, scientists have been particularly concerned about birds. There have been deaths from bird flu, mostly in Asia, but the virus has so far been unable to spread from person to person easily enough to touch off a pandemic.
The U.S. cases are a growing medical mystery because it's unclear how they caught the virus. The CDC said none of the seven people were in contact with pigs, which is how people usually catch swine flu. And only a few were in contact with each other.
CDC officials described the virus as having a unique combination of gene segments not seen in people or pigs before. The bug contains human virus, avian virus from North America and pig viruses from North America, Europe and Asia.
Health officials have seen mixes of bird, pig and human virus before, but never such an intercontinental combination with more than one pig virus in the mix.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gzz357patY4-QaJFvo9O95zMM_EQD97P008G2
So, this is mildly alarming. I trust we all remember the avian flu fad a few years ago. Well, thats still kicking around and spreading, but this is something altogether new. That it includes elements of avian, swine and human versions of the virus is a cause for concern; the ability to move cross species is why there was(is) so much concern over avian flu. That, and this one is already spreading human to human.
Humans have gotten been pretty good at battling disease during the past 100 years or so, but unfotunately these diseases adapt to our medicine. I'm definitely of the opinion that we're overdue for a big pandemic; the health care systems of a lot of countries are over stretched as it is, and the huge amount of elderly we have around in the West make prime targets for something like this. I wont be running to the hills over this, but I'll be keeping a very close eye on it.
Topics for discussion:
Fear mongering in the media
Role of pharmaceutical companies (engineered disease for profit, anyone?)
Preparedness of society (locally and internationally) to deal with large scale outbreaks
Flu vaccine, yay or nay?
Viruses are self-replicating chemical machines that are really cool
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Dey turk R germs!
Since I don't know what that joke is going to be, go for it.
That's not biting us in the ass. Nope, no siree.
Unrelated, wasn't this year also the year in which some of the flu vaccine fucked up and didn't predict one of the correct strains? I thought I recalled stories on this sometime last year for this coming flu season.
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I fear suffering the media panic more than the risk of actually getting the disease. Is that bad? I'm just so damn sick of the fear mongering losers on TV.
Yeah, CNN is going to have to get a "flu pandemic" logo and theme music.
That's like every year. Nurses/doctors and high risk people get flu shots that should protect them from multiple flu strains every year and every year some of the flu strains mutate and people who got the shot still get sick.
Modern medicine doesn't really have great defenses against viral outbreaks. Vaccines are not reliable (especially given our inability to accurately predict outbreaks) and everything else is not that effective.
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Yay! more work for me!
... we, um, made some good money doing bird flu animations. Scare mongers pay well.
I'm also kinda curious of the lethality of the virus; were the victims old and/or in a weak state, or just healthy José Schmoes? (hypothethic question at this time, I know)
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This disease will reach pandemic levels when pigs fly.
Can trade TF2 items or whatever else you're interested in. PM me.
No, it actually has been affecting young adults, which is unusual. I'll look around for a quote on that.
edit:
From my source in the OP. Reading the whole article is worth it, its quite comprehensive of whats been happening so far.
When it does, we'll all be getting Baconnaids.
Humans get these guys:
Viruses are basically shells that dock to cell membrane with those mushroom shaped appendages, blend with the cell wall and inject it's contents that turn the cell in to a factory that makes more viruses.
Oh I see, that looks equally icky although less like an alien insect.
Thats an interesting pic you have there. Are those false textures? It looks much too detailed for something so small.
They most definitely are, everything small that looks cool has probably been scientist-shopped/is a model.
Influenza strains exhibiting this pattern do have a history, and that history is notoriously vicious. :r
Well we have better antiviral medications than we used to but the ability to make it en masse would be iffy.
that's an image from an electron microscope
Yeah, its a shame. I just looked up the size of those things and they only get to 120nm in diameter, photographs don't really mean much on those scales.
And an informative wikipedia article about influenza, but education on the topic of viruses in general:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthomyxoviridae#Virology
Is that a symptom? Should I be worried?
no that's an image from Maya or 3ds max.
This is a real virus: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Papilloma_Virus_(HPV)_EM.jpg
But fake images look so much better and are way easier to use for illustrations.
The one I put up is by Russell Kightley. He uses a mix of 3d and photoshop (mostly photoshop).
With procedural shaders in maya (and max also I guess) that "virus look" is surprisingly fast and easy to produce, really cool stuff.
I mean, when I worked at a Starbucks, I washed my hands every time I blew my nose or sneezed. Every time. That was a fucking lot of hand-washing on some days, let me tell you. But both of my coworkers, even when they were on shift with me and saw me doing this, washed their own hands only every hour or so, when we flipped pots, no matter if they were sneezing or anything.
Ideally, the scare scares people into practicing basic sanitation protocols they honestly should be practicing anyway, but have brushed off in the past. I don't know how big a difference it makes, if it even makes a difference (:(), but I'd imagine this could be a huge plus.
Avoid public transportation and generally hanging out where there's crowds. Also, if you get sick, stay the fuck home!
I fucking hate it when sick people come in and get the entire office sick.
1. Epidemiologists/fluologists/whoever is in charge of this stuff try to figure out the 3 most likely strains of flu based on the previous year.
2. Make vaccines using those.
3. Vaccinate as many people as possible.
Usually they do pretty good on step 1.
Apparently last year they basically missed on all three (or at least 2, I don't remember) so most of the vaccines didn't do much.
I suppose there are some things that are useful that people don't do all the time. Staying home when horking up green gunk is definitely one of them. Not that anyone will do that, especially during a recession.
Edit: During my childhood, flu shots meant my father sneaking up on me, swabbing my arm with Jack Daniels, and jabbing me with the needle. I don't know why he thought sneaking up on me would make me less freaked out.
They were creepy as a kid. In a larger person, they go into your lax shoulder, which is very mushy and the injection is painless. You just feel slight muscle soreness in the shoulder for a day. If you start to feel sick, do a shot of NyQuil. College campuses have them cheap and accessible.
I feel this "plauge" is the result of Mexico being a very poor country. I feel bad for them.
EDIT - How are you supposed to get into a boss fight with an alien so fucking tiny?
Well, the beauty of viruses is that they do not discriminate based on class (except that poor people have less access to proper medicine, of course).
Its been confirmed that this is the same one thats already infected 8 people in the US. Flu spreads quickly, and this could rapidly become something other than pitying the people of a poor nation.
http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/news/20090424/mexico-swine-flu-epidemic-worries-world
I don't think this is gonna be as bad as the media makes it, but it's still bad.
Also, Rent, well played.