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A new flu strain that has killed up to 68 people in Mexico could become a pandemic, the World Health Organization warned on Saturday, as the nation's crowded capital hunkered down in fear of the disease.

Hospitals tested patients with flu symptoms for the never-before-seen virus, which has also infected eight people in the United States. There have been no further deaths in Mexico City since Friday, but 24 new suspected cases were being tested and officials warned the strain was spreading fast between people, meaning there was a risk of a major outbreak.

"It has pandemic potential because it is infecting people," WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said in Geneva.

Now this could be nothing to worry to much about but the following part is pretty concerning,

Mexico has said the new flu had killed at least 20 people and could be to blame for 48 more deaths. In all, more than 1,000 suspected cases have been reported nationwide. Most of the dead were aged 25 to 45, a worrying sign because a hallmark of past pandemics has been high fatalities among healthy young adults.

I'm not a germ a phobe, I have followed the 5 sec rule a few time. But this is kinda concerning epecially if it is hybrid of the bird and pig flu like they beleive.

my brother had just sent me the article link a little while ago. im not too worried about it though.
kbye
john

I can't speak as to this individual outbreak, but I went to a seminar on the spread of diseases in modern societies as research for the Black Death a couple of years back when worry about bird flu was at its peak (This is rough stuff from memory):

- If the strain mutates whilst in any animal it can become a completely new strain that could potentially be immune to current innoculations
- If that happened, modelling shows that peak mortality could be reached within a couple of months (even with only absolute necessary air traffic (about 2% at least is essential - food supplies, medicine, etc))
- If the disease was a completely new strain it would take at least six months to synthesise enough vacinations to reach everyone (you'll notice long past peak mortality rates)
- So basically we'd be no better off than people were when the Black Death hit - all we could do is implement imperfect attempts at quarantine and blockades, much akin to the Italian city states in the middle ages.....

But its probably just nothing

Kinda scary the way it moves around so fast.

now confirmed 149 deaths in Mexico, and confirmed cases in the US, Spain, Canada, and Scotland.

So long as the pork is properly cooked, you can't catch any kind of disease from it. Its direct contact with livestock that passes the disease on....although now it is fairly obvious it can be transmitted from human to human.

Professor Nial Fergusson: "We might expect up to 30-40% of the population to become ill in the next six months if this truly turns into a pandemic."

And with the WHO upping their alert status, it certainly seems we could be heading that way. However, unlike H5N1 (Bird flu), this strain is no where near as deadly....potentially thousands have been infected in Mexico and yet relatively few (150) deaths have been reported, so it doesn't have the lethalty of avian flu....and cases in other countries have been relatively mild and current anti-viral innoculations have been effective....so, assuming it doesn't mutate quite substantially, we should be pretty okay.....hopefully....

It`s not the pork that`s dangerous, its the people carrying the virus spreading it much faster to other humans than any other pig.

In annual influenza epidemics 5-15% of the population are affected with upper respiratory tract infections. Hospitalization and deaths mainly occur in high-risk groups (elderly, chronically ill). Although difficult to assess, these annual epidemics are thought to result in between three and five million cases of severe illness and between 250 000 and 500 000 deaths every year around the world. Most deaths currently associated with influenza in industrialized countries occur among the elderly over 65 years of age.

There's a bunch in canada too.

At first I didn't really bat an eyelash about this, I thought it was just people fear mongering as the norm. Although if it's spreading, that's mildly concerning. I doubt anything will come of it though..

all i can say i thank god all those kids in Mexico for spring break in the last couple of weeks didn't have close body connect and exchanging of body fluids, why if they did that, then it might be hard to keep it from reaching all points in the glob in a matter of weeks, before it shows even a sniffle

Manetheren wrote:In annual influenza epidemics 5-15% of the population are affected with upper respiratory tract infections. Hospitalization and deaths mainly occur in high-risk groups (elderly, chronically ill). Although difficult to assess, these annual epidemics are thought to result in between three and five million cases of severe illness and between 250 000 and 500 000 deaths every year around the world. Most deaths currently associated with influenza in industrialized countries occur among the elderly over 65 years of age.

This is the key here, this virus is killing 20-45 year olds through a possible cytokin storm effect on the immune system. Kinda like the old spanish flu that killed 20-100 mill people world wide.

but i'm not advising anyone to panic, just make sure to follow this and take proper precautions; like hand washing and keeping up with the laundary.

The WHO raised the pandemic alert lvl to 4(not that it means much, but a virus > terrorist

@sandman, you won't catch the flu from eating pork unless some guy(who has it) coffs all over your pork tenderloin and even then the chance is of catching it is far lower through ingestion then inhallation..... the stuff that you write is mind boggling.

Thriller wrote:

Manetheren wrote:In annual influenza epidemics 5-15% of the population are affected with upper respiratory tract infections. Hospitalization and deaths mainly occur in high-risk groups (elderly, chronically ill). Although difficult to assess, these annual epidemics are thought to result in between three and five million cases of severe illness and between 250 000 and 500 000 deaths every year around the world. Most deaths currently associated with influenza in industrialized countries occur among the elderly over 65 years of age.

This is the key here, this virus is killing 20-45 year olds through a possible cytokin storm effect on the immune system. Kinda like the old spanish flu that killed 20-100 mill people world wide.

but i'm not advising anyone to panic, just make sure to follow this and take proper precautions; like hand washing and keeping up with the laundary.

The WHO raised the pandemic alert lvl to 4(not that it means much, but a virus > terrorist

@sandman, you won't catch the flu from eating pork unless some guy(who has it) coffs all over your pork tenderloin and even then the chance is of catching it is far lower through ingestion then inhallation..... the stuff that you write is mind boggling.

Yes that is alarming but the fact that 150 people in a city of 18 million people, while tragic, is still a very small % of the total population.

@sandman.. I just ate some Bacon.

Something else to think about. The center of this is Mexico City. Extremely dense population centers. Many of the deaths occurred in poverty stricken areas and homes where people were not getting proper medical care.

Tragic as that may be, the chance of this becoming a pandemic of death is very improbable, but gets so much press in today's electronic world that panic is inevitable.

On a side note, China has blocked shipments of pork and other commodities as an extreme protection from this, despite overwhelming evidence that there is no danger in the food products. They effectively killed some commodity markets.(temporaraly for sure) Guess they will get the good deals on Corn and Pork in the end.

serrin wrote:Something else to think about. Many of the deaths occurred in poverty stricken areas and homes where people were not getting proper medical care.

yes, and should this reach pandemic stage, the majority of the deaths will happen in the "3rd world" as always, the only difference this time around being with globle communication, they will know industrialized western countries have the care and resources to fight the infection, filing more anger and anti western class hatred.

It's definitely spreading..