Saturday, April 25, 2009

Of Concern (NOW URGENT-See UPDATE)

There is a serious outbreak of influenza in Mexico.

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, NYT is reporting.

It has killed as many as 61 people and infected possibly hundreds.

A few years back I was briefed by a bio-terrorist expert/CIA advisor, on various types of flus. He told me the most dangerous flus were the ones that killed the healthy. The great Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 was such a flu.

This is what NYT is reporting about this outbreak:

Most of Mexico’s dead were young, healthy adults, and none were over 60 or under 3 years old, the World Health Organization said.
Even more curious about this breakout is the timing. NYT again:

Mexico’s flu season is usually over by now, but health officials have noticed a significant spike in flu cases since mid-March. The W.H.O. said there had been 800 cases in Mexico in recent weeks, 60 of them fatal, of a flu like illness that appeared to be more serious than the regular seasonal flu.
As if to emphasise the uselessness of more government regulation, to those who call for more government regulation of every aspect of life, if there ever was a time to warn about travel to Mexico, it is now. Yet, because of political reasons it won't happen. The NYT reports one helluva contradiction from the CDC:

“We are worried,” said Dr. Richard Besser, the acting head of the C.D.C. “We don’t know if this will lead to the next pandemic, but we will be monitoring it and taking it seriously.”
How serious? Not serious enough to warn Americans about trips to Mexico. The same government that makes grandmothers take off their shoes at airports, seems to be more concerned about Mexican tourism than a potential pandemic:

The C.D.C. refrained from warning people not to visit Mexico. Even so, the outbreak comes at an awful time for tourism officials, who have been struggling to counter the perception that violence has made Mexico unsafe for travelers.


It's the private sector news disseminators, e.g., me and NYT, that don't give a damn about Mexican tourisim.

As a pre-caution before the government shuts this avenue down, find yourself a friendly doctor, tell him that everyone in your family has flu symptoms and you need Tamiflu. Store the Tamiflu, and hope you will not need to use it. The terrorist expert told me that Tamiflu is the most likely flu treatment to work against a pandemic type flu. If this does get serious, the supplies of Tamiflu in existence are nowhere near enough for the general public.

UPDATE: You can be sure they made these kids take their shoes off at the airport. From NYT:

The New York City health department dispatched a team of investigators to a private school in Queens on Friday after dozens of students complained of symptoms that officials believed were consistent with a strain of swine flu that has swept Mexico City.

The agency said about 75 students at St. Francis Preparatory School had complained Thursday of nausea, fever, dizziness and aches and pains. Several of the students were said to have recently traveled to Mexico, where as many as 61 people have died and possibly hundreds more have been infected in an outbreak of swine flu in recent weeks.

4 comments:

  1. Tamiflu ineffective in a pandemic?
    http://avianflu.typepad.com/avianflu/2006/01/tamiflu_ineffec.html

    ECDC and WHO Finds Tamiflu Ineffective
    http://www.abundantlifeessentials.com/tamiflu.htm

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  2. Tamiflu would be ineffective against Avian bird flu H5N1.

    Apparently it is effective against Mexican swine flu (for lack of a better description) H1N1.

    Not all flu strains are the same.

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  3. I know a person who work at the public health department. She told me the Tamiflu vaccine will be ineffective against this virus. It's a lie to stop the panic. Also very few people are being tested because of the cost that would be passed on to the patient. So the count is way off as to how many people have the new virus.

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  4. I heard the president has been exposed to the swine flu, "On April 16 President Obama met archaeologist Felipe Solis at the Mexico City Anthropology Museum. Solis died the next day with symptoms similar to flu." It's getting to be like something made for TV.

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