Already too late to contain WHO flu expert, Obama at risk

By Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, PEI, Canada, April 28th, 2009 with story from the BBC

It’s alread too late to contain the Swine Flu says World Health Authority expert Dr Keiji Fukuda: “Containment is not a feasible operation”.

President Obama spent a day with Mexican official Filipe Soris who died the next day reportedly from the swine virus. Obama says he is well but who knows?

The impossibility of containment was pretty obvious by late Monday the 27th when cases of Swine Flu were being reported in North America and Europe. PEI has 8 reported cases according to CBC and the local rumour mill. People travel and bring it back home. Last night Health Canada issued a minor health travel advisory about Mexico, about 2 days late.

The first cases of swine flu were not April 1, 2009 as reported. Mexico had cases in March 2009. The early cases were in 1998 in China and Vietnam, when it appeared to jump from pigs to people. The transference worried scientists then. The earliest reported case was 1976 in the Philippines.

The swine flu didn’t go away in the past ten years. It spread throughout Southeast Asia and crossed into Central America and Mexico. From pigs it mutated into humans. Their is nothing more persistent than a virus. They adapt to all our best medical science.

The only real way to beat a virus is for the human species to get it, develop the antigens as a class and defeat that strain of virus. The process takes decades since most of the world’s population must become infected for the antigens to develop universally.

“Recommendations to prevent infection by the virus consist of the standard personal precautions against influenza. This includes frequent washing of hands with soap and water or with alcohol-based hand sanitizers, especially after being out in public. People should avoid touching their mouth, nose or eyes with their hands unless they’ve washed their hands. If people do cough, they should either cough into a tissue and throw it in the garbage immediately, cough into their elbow, or, if they cough in their hand, they should wash their hands immediately.” Wikipedia

Annual deaths from the current strains of flu, not including swine virus, are 36,000 Americans and 1,500 Canadians according to CMAJ. It might be a good idea to remain calm and stop reading these stories, but that’s hard to do until we get bored with the topic.

That’s the nature of news – no matter how shocking or worrisome, we will become accustomed to bad news and replace it with newer news within a short time period.