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| -Signs, Portents, and the Weather- |
| Latest 70's Flashback: Swine Flu Reported in TX & CA |
| 2009-04-24 |
| Seven people have been diagnosed with a strange and unusual new kind of swine flu in California and Texas, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Thursday. "We believe at this point that human-to-human spread is occurring," Schuchat said. "That's unusual. We don't know yet how widely it is spreading ... We are also working with international partners to understand what is occurring in other parts of the world." Two of the new cases were among 16-year-olds at the same school in San Antonio "and there's a father-daughter pair in California," Schuchat said. One of the boys whose cases was reported on Tuesday had flown to Dallas but the CDC has found no links to the other Texas cases. Unusually, said the CDC's Nancy Cox, the viruses all appear to carry genes from swine flu, avian flu and human flu viruses from North America, Europe and Asia. I guess this is multiculturalism, bacteria-style? "We haven't seen this strain before, but we hadn't been looking as intensively as we have," Schuchat said. "It's very possible that this is something new that hasn't been happening before." Or one that somebody whipped up in a lab The influenza strain is an H1N1, the same family as one of the seasonal flu viruses now circulating. Now that the normal influenza season is waning, it may be easier to spot cases of the new swine flu, Schuchat said. Only one of the seven cases was sick enough to be hospitalized and all have recovered, Schuchat said. The new cases appear to have somewhat more vomiting and diarrhea than is usually seen in flu, which mostly causes coughing, fever, sore throat and muscle aches. Cox said the CDC is already preparing a vaccine against the new strain, just in case. "This is standard operating procedure," Cox said. |
| Posted by:Cornsilk Blondie |
| #3 Be sure to check directly with the CDC about news like this. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2009-04-24 15:05 |
| #2 be kinda |
| Posted by: Frank G 2009-04-24 14:37 |
| #1 Just about every corner of the world has medical authorities jumping about because of some new and menacing variety of influenza. This one came out of the blue with no warning, in an H2H form. Mexico City is being hit by *something* that has already knocked down at least 500 medical personnel in several different hospitals. Tests are showing two different strains of flu, maybe, in some people. It has killed at least 20 people, and critically, people commonly need ventilation. Ventilators are in short supply. Egypt just had its 25th Avian flu death, and a strain there is less lethal, but is being spread human to human, mostly among small children, which is extreme danger for a lethal strain to develop H2H transmission. The Chinese, Vietnamese, Bangladeshi, and Indonesian Avian flu are also carrying out special tasks almost like separate units during D-Day. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2009-04-24 09:29 |