Swine Flu Outbreak In Mexico Update

Worrying developments, it has already killed as many as 68 people and infected possibly 1,000.

The new strain contains gene sequences from North American and Eurasian swine flus, North American bird flu and North American human flu, said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A similar virus has been found in the American Southwest, where officials have reported eight nonfatal cases.

Most of Mexico’s dead were young, healthy adults, and none were over 60 or under 3 years old, the World Health Organization said. That alarms health officials because seasonal flus cause most of their deaths among infants and bedridden elderly people, but pandemic flus — like the 1918 Spanish flu, and the 1957 and 1968 pandemics — often strike young, healthy people the hardest.

There hasn't yet been a call to reduce travel, which could spread this around the world rapidly. One more effect of so much plane travel, unlike the '18 '57 and '68 more contained pandemics.

UPDATE Government advice says don't sneeze on people, and don't go out! And they are smug that we have enough of the vaccine, though it may not work.

While numbers of the dead in Mexico climb over 100, the first European case was confirmed in Spain. They refuse to consider a more cautionary approach to flying to or from Mexico, saying their models show it wont work and will cost money. Why then have a quarantine system at all? Perhaps they are scared of the Air travel lobby, who do seem to get everything they want.

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