Swine flu is officially a pandemic. But don't worry ... not yet, anyway

Swine flu is officially a pandemic. But don't worry ... not yet, anyway

www.guardian.co.uk...

Out of 30,000 global cases, only 145 deaths have been reported and development of a vaccine is well under way. But scientists will not relax: the virus could mutate and grow stronger over the summer - and what happens if it mixes with bird flu?

Organisation to act. With confirmation last week that swine flu cases had risen above 1,000 in Australia, it was clear the disease was now spreading freely around the world. Thousands of cases had already been reported in the United States, Mexico and Chile. Officials at the World Health Organisation simply had no choice. On Thursday, they announced swine flu had achieved pandemic status, the first strain of influenza to reach this mark for 41 years.

I do realize that i have not been active in this section of the site, but are these journalists serious is this just a catchy title. When does it become alarming when we have 1,000 or 5.000 dead ?

Just curious, extremely curious about how this some what little nuisance of a virus has suddenly leaped frog throughout the world.

Well, it's obviously highly contagious- which makes it a Pandemic. It's also killing people in age groups not normally killed by flu- and out of flu season. And, it's a de novo A strain virus. Taken together, ithas the potential to be a gloabla killer on a grand scale. It could also recombine with H5N1, in which case we would see mortality rates between 50 and 90% of those who catch it. So, i see the reasoning of the Level 6 declaration.


If it 'fizzles" and is just highly contagious, kills a smaler number than anticipated 9though enough, certainly, to mourn), we will have had a global test run for the next one, which will surely come in our lifetimes.

I think the most telling indication is the number of people contracting it in the healthiest years of life, and the speed with which it has spread around the globe. Those facts, taken apart from mortality are stunning, especially as the nurses and doctors are putting otherwise healthy people in ICU- on respirators- and are contracting the flu from their patients. All of these are hallmarks of a pandemic worth paying atention to, in my opinion.