At this rate The Sun & Daily Express will be giving away face masks, get stuffed they don't work. Daily Mail went with a different headline. One thing is for sure, the media are having one heck of a whoop it up party.
I suspect a the similar situation in Mexico is what is really scaring some people. http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/lecture/lec34601/032.htm Would seam to indicate other wise. N95 masks were recomended at a couple points earlier in the briefing.
Why do you say that? I would assume that it can still propagate among swine populations and move back and forth between them and us and possibly birds as well.[/QUOTE] lwd, I say that because the village and site of the original outbreak in Mexico has now been identified apparantly, and the pigs are not infectous anymore at that site. The strain killing humans and making humans sick is now a malignet strain that is not the original strain the swine apparantly had. This does not stop swine flu breaking out anywhere else withing pigs, but they wont have the same strain as we now have, they now differ according to WHO.
Just because those particular swine are no longer infectous doesn't mean others can't be infected. The strain that jumped to humans had to have made it's change before it jumped to us or it wouldn't have jumped. There for there is every reason to believe it is still capable of infecting swine. Possibly but I'd like to see the quote. IE another swin flu outbreak could be a different strain but it could also be the current strain passing back to swine per: http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/lecture/lec34601/004.htm and http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/lecture/lec34601/016.htm
Were getting at odds over the same thing here lwd, my statement in the first stated that swine flu can indeed still be infectuous....i.e. my statement This does not stop swine flu breaking out anywhere else within pigs. So I dont see where I differ from what your last reply. Its an issue of trust as who to you believe, and this is crucial, as to who or where you get your information. No one that I know of has yet given any rational answers on the disease, which in itself causes the panic that the media dwell and regurgitate to us Joe Public. My statement is from the BBC news on radio 4 last night at 8pm and quoting WHO and another international org that slips my memory now...being as I'm not really that interested in the pig flu itself more so the surrounding launch the lifeboat anxiety some have. I will though see if its on BBC download and if it is I will put its link up.
I find in times of panic....its always best to switch to radio 4...and wait for the shipping forecast,,,if up early enough though the farming diary is just as acceptable for calming the furrowed brow.
Urqh H1N1 is a Swine-bird-human flu pathogen, there is now a deliberate policy by health care officials CDC, European Disease Control Centre and NHS are trying to get away from the Swine Flu terminology to prevent the idiots taking over the asylum. Or else we will end up with unnecessary slaughtering of livestock. Obviously the Pigs in Mexico got over their flu which possibly means it was no more lethal than normal-only time will tell, but there is now a real danger of crying wolf. I would imagine that much of the unwell people are the worried well. I have the same problem when I go to a building where tests have been made for asbestos, for days afterward despite own logic I feel heavy chested, in medical terms it is psychosyematic i.e. Steve being an idiot. Steve
Well Its moved on and I couldnt get onto the fourm last night with regard to the BBC radio 4 news, But its old news 2 days old in fact so I'm not even going to look it up,,,,harsh of me, but I aint gone mental enough to trawl thru that lot yet. The pigs indeed have stopped sneezing in Mexico, but nothing to stop them doing so agains should they wish. We now have the novel flu over here rather than swine flu....The European version, same thing I think just renamed it....People were not eating their bacon Mcmuffins probably...So wise to do so, but shouldnt we all get together and come up with a name we can all use or the conspiracy theorists amongst us will be doubtful of taking any vaccine if necessary that is labeled Novel in Europe, anti flu bits and things in UK, Swine flu in America and Canada, Friesflu in France and Sheveinhund in Germany....Oh and swine fever in Ireland. If I sneeze how do I report my sneeze to the docs??? I need a proper name.
What I should have typed was Spring or Summer, not Spring/Summer. It has been a long time since I read the article and I could not remember exactly when it first appeared. It could have been late Winter. Regardless, when it first appeared, it was not nearly as virulent as it later became.
So last night I played soccer for 2 hours with about 30 people. Pretty chaotic, and half of them were South American. We started to play with this really old, dirty looking ball, so the guys were joking about it. "This ball looks like it came from a Mexican slum...we're gonna get Swine Flu if we just touch it! Get a new ball quick!" and things along that line (all relating to the Swine Flu). It was pretty funny.
Here is an interesting article from the AP this morning: Scientists struggle to understand swine flu virus
Another good article, even if it is from the LA Times. Scientists see this flu strain as relatively mild - Los Angeles Times
I woke up this morning with a bit of a sniffle, tried to get the doctor on the phone but all I got was 'crackling!' BOOM BOOM
OK, it's officially moved into the realm of stupidity. The Egyptians have taken first place in the race to panic. And why do Egyptians need pigs anyway? Aren't Muslims supposed to avoid pork? Egypt orders slaughter of all pigs over swine flu MAAMOUN YOUSSEF The Associated Press CAIRO - Egypt began slaughtering the roughly 300,000 pigs in the country Wednesday as a precaution against swine flu even though no cases have been reported here, infuriating farmers who blocked streets and stoned vehicles of Health Ministry workers who came to carry out the government's order. The measure was a stark expression of the panic the deadly outbreak is spreading around the world, especially in poor countries with weak public health systems. Egypt responded similarly a few years ago to an outbreak of bird flu, which is endemic to the country and has killed two dozen people. At one large pig farming center just north of Cairo, scores of angry farmers blocked the street to prevent Health Ministry workers in trucks and bulldozers from coming in to slaughter the animals. Some pelted the vehicles with rocks and shattered their windshields and the workers left without killing any pigs. "We remind Hosni Mubarak that we are all Egyptians. Where does he want us to go?" said Gergis Faris, a 46-year-old pig farmer in another part of Cairo who collects garbage to feed his animals. "We are uneducated people, just living day by day and trying to make a living, and now if our pigs are taken from us without compensation, how are we supposed to live?" Most in the Muslim world consider pigs unclean animals and do not eat pork because of religious restrictions. One Islamic militant Web site carried comments Wednesday saying swine flu was God's revenge against "infidels." Pigs are banned entirely in some Muslim countries including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Libya. However in other parts of the Muslim world, they are often raised by religious minorities who can eat pork. In Jordan, the government decided Wednesday to shut down the country's five pig farms, involving 800 animals, for violating public health safety regulations. Half the pigs will be killed and the rest will be relocated to areas away from the population, officials said. In Egypt, pigs are raised and consumed mainly by the Christian minority, which some estimates put at 10 percent of the population. Health Ministry spokesman Abdel-Rahman Shaheen estimated there are between 300,000-350,000 pigs in Egypt. "It has been decided to immediately start slaughtering all the pigs in Egypt using the full capacity of the country's slaughterhouses," Health Minister Hatem el-Gabaly told reporters after a Cabinet meeting with President Hosni Mubarak. Global health experts said the mass slaughter of pigs is entirely unnecessary and a waste of resources. But Egypt's reaction was colored by its experiences with bird flu. Bird flu started sweeping through poultry populations across Asia in 2003 and then jumped to humans, killing more than 250 worldwide. Egypt was among the countries hardest hit. According to the World Health Organization, it has the world's fourth highest death toll , after Indonesia, Vietnam and China , and the largest outside of Asia. WHO has confirmed 23 deaths in Egypt and Egyptian authorities have reported three more deaths in recent weeks. Chickens used to roam every dusty street in every village across Egypt, and many of its city alleys too. But when the disease first appeared here in February 2006, 25 million birds were killed within weeks, devastating the poultry sector and particularly the family farmers. Chickens nearly all vanished from sight, slaughtered, abandoned or locked away by a population increasingly aware of, and frightened by, the disease's stubborn grip. The latest measure appeared designed to avert a similar panic. Swine flu is blamed for more than 150 deaths in Mexico and U.S. health officials reported on Wednesday the first known death outside Mexico , a 23-month-old Mexican boy in Texas. It has spread to Europe, Asia and Israel, which shares a border with Egypt. Experts suspect swine flu, a strange new mix of pig, bird and human flu virus, originated with pigs then jumped to humans and is now spreading through human-to-human contact. Health authorities have said you cannot contract the flu by eating pork. "It is unfortunate," the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization Chief Veterinary Officer Joseph Domenech said of Egypt's decision. "The crisis today is in transmission from human to human. It has nothing to do with pigs," he told The Associated Press. In the northern suburbs of Cairo Wednesday, health authorities killed 250 pigs and buried them. Angry farmers demanded compensation and provincial governors paid them around 1,000 Egyptian pounds (about $180) per head. The farmers asked for an official government decision to set a price for each pig slaughtered. Agriculture Minister Amin Abaza told reporters that farmers would be allowed to sell the pork meat so there would be no need for compensation. Egypt orders slaughter of all pigs over swine flu | AP | 04/29/2009
I would also recommend another look at my post #18, which recommends two books on the 1918 outbreak. Perhaps it would be useful in this case as well.
Interesting this....I have an old air corps base about hafl a mile from me here, before they became the RAF, then turned over to a sanitorium, loads of Aussies buried there who died of the flu after ww1. Then became a lunatic assaylum. Now an old folks retirement complex. Hope lightning dont strike twice. Got me interested enough to have alook at the old graves though.
