ButAsForMe 

If H1N1 joins with the bird flu, pandemic may be much worse*

by admin on November 18, 2009 · 0 comments

in 1, Commentary, Economy, H1N1 Pandemic, H1N1 Symptoms & Effects, Health Care, Health Care Reform, Obama, Obama Emergency H1N1 Actions, Pandemic, swine flu

[Commentary printed by The China Post* ref. post Playing Chicken With A Nightmare Flu by Alan Sipress The Washington Post]

When swine flu erupted this spring in the southwestern United States and Mexico, it had been 40 years since the last flu pandemic. The outbreak has dispelled any illusion that pandemic influenza belonged to a bygone era, like smallpox, polio or scarlet fever. But we haven’t seen how bad things might yet get.

What’s the worst-case scenario? It could be a continuing vaccine shortage. It might be a mutation in the swine flu virus that suddenly makes the strain resistant to Tamiflu, as some seasonal flu strains already are. Or it could be that hospital ICUs become so overwhelmed that people who could have been saved die.
These are all unnerving possibilities. Yet many flu specialists say their real nightmare is that swine flu could meet up and swap genetic material — or reassort, as these scientists say — with another, deadlier flu strain, breeding a new virus that is as contagious as but far more savage.




POULAR POSTS:

Tagged as: Africa and flu, Asia and Flu, CDC, Egypt, Keiji Fikuda, Margaret Chan, Mexico, Pandemic, swine flu, Swine Flu and Avian Flu, U.S., Virus reassortment, W.H.O.

Leave a Comment

Previous post:

Next post: