WHO Raising Swine Flu Alert To Highest Level

[Roon]

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/health/19712840/detail.html?treets=den&tml=den_natlbreak&ts=T&tmi=den_natlbreak_1_09150206112009

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1. The new has worn off...you don't hear about it much

However, I read this frightening article a few weeks back:



>>>snip
May 20, 2009 (San Diego, California) — In a special panel session here at ATS 2009: the American Thoracic Society International Conference, experts and public-health officials discussed the current situation and ways hospitals can prepare for a potential second wave of infections in the fall.

The novel influenza A (H1N1) virus "sneaked in the door while health authorities who should have known better were busy closing windows," said Carol J. Cardona, DVM, PhD, ACPV, from the Department of Population Health and Reproduction, and professor in the School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, Davis, to an overflow crowd of thoracic and critical-care physicians.

"This virus has followed the pattern of all historic pandemics, and we've missed some precursors out there and we've missed some signals," Dr. Cardona said. She is a virologist and an expert in determining how disease-causing agents damage their hosts. Dr. Cardona's segment of the presentation was entitled "Swine Flu: Molecular Clues to the Origin, Transmission, and Pathogenesis of the Virus."

>>>snip
He said it might get to the point that entire hospitals will be converted to ICU care, because institutions cannot care for ill patients in tents that are not equipped with liquid oxygen systems. He suggested that acute respiratory distress syndrome and asthma would be the predominant conditions of presenting patients. "Despite excellent care, people are still dying and until recently there were no good data to predict just how sick people would be; these are sick people who will require a full-court press of what we can provide."


Edited to take out link with my personal account info.
If interested, go to www.medscape.com and do a search for ATS 2009 and the article will come up and you can read it in full.

[Horse with no Name]

2. and then there is this one:

again...www.medscape.com. You will have to register. But the implications of this flu merging with MRSA is frightening.

>>>snip
May 4, 2009 (Baltimore, Maryland) — Pediatric infectious diseases specialists and public health experts used the stage of the Pediatric Academic Societies' annual meeting to update their colleagues on the latest statistics and projections on the H1N1 "swine flu" outbreak.

"I believe that we will see die down over the next month or two, with a reemergence in the fall," predicted James Cherry, MD, pediatric infectious diseases specialist at the University of California at Los Angeles School of Medicine.

"I've lived through 4 shifts of influenza A," Dr. Cherry told a heavily attended special symposium here. The current strain appears to be more similar to the 1957 strain, when deaths were largely attributed to coinfection with Staphylococcus aureus, than it does to the better recognized 1976 swine influenza outbreak, he said.

"I think we are going to see this strain reemerge in the fall, with MRSA . I believe MRSA will play a major role in morbidity and mortality," Dr. Cherry warned.