Swine Flu

Hi, I am not a medical expert, could this influenza get as bad as the Spanish flu of the last century?

Is there any real agent that could halt it in its track?

I know there are a few antiviral drugs, but could the AIDS drugs be used for the general population if this outbreak became a global pandemic?

How much of a difference would modern medical intervention be when compared to the Spanish flu?

Could millions die if this got out of control?

How would it affect air traffic between continents?

What would the effect be on sports events with crowds of spectators

How fast could a vaccine be be created by the medical teams?

The virus could mutate and become weak or it could mutate into different deadly viruses for which humans have no protection?

Must we stop eating pork?

I think the masks presently used by people are useless against a tiny virus, it would have no problem getting through into the body

This outbreak could advance and spread in biblical proportions or we might wake up and hear the whole thing was now under control

Would the authorities hold back the truth from the population if they knew for sure this was an outbreak of deadly biblical apocalyptic pandemic proportions?

If the truth was the worst possible will the authorities tell us or just keep quite because telling us will not alter the outcome?

With respect to most germs that people give to one another out in the community, contamination of one's hands is a critical step in transmission. You shake someone's hand or open a door, then pick up your food or pick your nose or rub your eyes or something.

So very frequent and vigilant hand hygiene is a well-proven way to limit transmission, both from other people to you and from you to other people. Antibacterial soaps are no better than any other soap for influenza -- the important part is that you wash at all (and an effective handwash requires 15 seconds of vigorous scrubbing before you rinse). This is going to work for all the flu viruses, cold viruses, stomach viruses, and bacterial diseases like MRSA.

Alcohol-based hand sanitizers like Purell are great too and they're easy. They need to have a 60-70% alcohol concentration to be most effective -- no more, no less -- and they ideally should have a good emollient so that your hands don't break down from them (that's why I like Purell and Alcare). Purell will knock out influenza, but it's not active against a few nasties like enteroviruses (many of which circulate during summer months).

Counterproductive would be washing to the point where your skin is breaking down, because you can become colonized with staph (including MRSA) with skin breakdown.

Aedes, why is the H5N1 not a problem, what makes it incapable of harming humans as of yet?

Is it just a matter of a strain mutating into a certain way? And then what characteristics must the strain have in order for humans to be threatened by it?

What are the influences which cause high mutation rates of these viruses anyways?

It was never 180, the initial panic was because Mexico reported something around 12 deaths in 50 cases.

Edit -- I should add that 36,000 people die every year in the United States from influenza, and worldwide there are 250,000 to 500,000 deaths every year.

So 19 or 180, whichever, pales in comparison to the toll that the normal annual flu strains take.

That's quite a cynical viewpoint -- not entirely without merit, but I'd offer you a different point of view on the matter:

1) The mortality rate in the initial Mexican reports was so high that if this held true around the world there could be millions or tens of millions of deaths.

2) Flu is extremely contagious, and it's contagious early on when people are asymptomatic, so control measures need to be implemented very promptly.

3) After SARS and after avian flu, the media is very savvy about these global epidemics of respiratory viruses, they've gotten enough expertise to know when a story is "exceptional" enough to jump on it.

Noted I was referring to the media and not the authorities, it is the medias responsibility to supply us with the truth

They should have used someone like you to get a sane perceptive on the matter, like your post on the normal expected death rate of the flu virus every year

So you dont think its a good idea ,as i have a cold ,to go as a Mexican bandit to tonight's fancy dress party?

At your extreme advanced age , the younger folk will patronize you gently and send you home quickly , they will be terrified of I think ?

We of the ancient epoch of human evolution simply cant keep up can we?

Maybe I am speaking about myself!