Now in New Zealand [Swine Flu]
 

Health officials have announced that three of a college party that arrived back from their field trip to Mexico have tested positive for swine flu. more.

I had convinced that this would all blow over and it would be found that the students would have only common flu. The hype here is similar to the bird-flu outbreak several years ago which many people took precautions for, though it never made it to New Zealand.

There are still 56 suspected cases in NZ and up to 70 in Australia. 40 confirmed in the US. Is it not that big a deal in the states? I'm surprised that this hasn't been brought up already.. anyone taking extra precaution?

Re: Now in New Zealand
 

I'm worried about the ones in Aus. Last thing we need right now is a major pandemic, not with the world in economic turmoil. But not good for you. At least the people are more spread out over here.

Re: Now in New Zealand
 

There are 4 students in Winsdor NS, about an hour from here that have/had it. The symptoms were very mild. Two others are confirmed in the Province as well.

My wife has not been feeling well since, just before we left Cancun. She took the day off work today, so I know she's not good. I'm calling her GP as soon as they open, in about a 1/2 hour. I don't think it's terminal, but it's good for us and them to know what it is.
I think it's some other bug though. Hopefully, we'll find out soon.

Re: Now in New Zealand
 

I really hope she is ok. So far nobody I know personally has the bug (touch wood), so fingers crossed it doesn't get any worse.

Re: Now in New Zealand
 

Right, some info about the flu...


World Health Organisation says we are not at pandemic stage yet.

Respiratory disease seen in pigs, in people can only be spread person to person (but how did we get it in the first place?).

Can be spread one day before getting sick and seven days after that.

Displays normal flu-like symptoms in humans.

To keep from getting this flu, the WHO say we should stay hygeinic (wash hands etc.), get plenty of sleep, be physically active, manage our stress, drink plenty of fluids, and eat nutritious food. Try not touch surfaces that may be contaminated with the flu virus. Avoid close contact with people who are sick.

This flu cannot be spread by eating pork. There are medicines to treat it (mainly anti-viral) but currently no vaccine.


So everybody, stay safe. Please.

Re: Now in New Zealand
 

It is a big news topic here in the states. Time to follow the basics... and load up on the hand sanitizer.

Re: Now in New Zealand
 

Someone's done a google maps locator with it...

http://ow.ly/47bL

There's one not far from me... :(

Re: Now in New Zealand
 

We're all gonna die oh noooooooooo

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This thing sure is overhyped...

Can't see it as anything worth our time seeing how many more people are dying of normal flu... Perhaps later if this thing turns out to be anything real.

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The media have to have something to do. Normal flu is so...normal even if more die from it. Lets get hysterical. I think I'm going to duct tape all my neighbors doors and windows just in case.

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A friend of mine said that somebody at her work came down with it, and now they all have to be careful. Also read that it has now killed someone, a small boy.

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Actually, it's now killed someone in the US. All the other deaths were in Mexico.

Re: Now in New Zealand
 

It's a big deal in the States mate. The media's been talking it up for the past week. We've had a couple of confirmed cases here in MA as well.

Thing about this is that things are changing so rapidly that people don't fully understand the scope yet. There's been one fatality, a 2yo kid in Texas. According to unconfirmed reports from Mexico there have apparently been 150+ deaths, but only 7 confirmed due to swine flu. Probably because the remaining 143 haven't been tested/autopsied yet.

The media has been beating it up, but on the other hand flu is highly contagious and can be transmitted aerially, and this is a new strain that people's immune systems haven't seen yet. The risk is minimal, but it is there. But will it wipe the world out the way the Black Death did? Don't think so. Unless it starts moving to poorly developed countries in Africa where sanitation is poor and barrier nursing is not well practiced, and antiviral drugs are unavailable, then you're going to see a lot more fatalities (which is the case with influenza and other pathogens like malaria, typhoid etc anyway). In rich, well developed countries like the US, Western Europe, Australia and Middle-Earth, you probably won't see a lot.

From a personal point of view I'm not taking any additional precautions at this stage though. If a few more cases are found close to home/work I might!

Re: Now in New Zealand [Swine Flu]
 

I want to clarify something. This is not downplaying the outbreak but for some reason, what is underreported by the media and government is that the swine flu is not a fatal disease. People are terrified, because on some level they think if they catch it, they will die or be hospitalized. No, it is just the flu - a new strain with the same symptoms. New strains are identified every so often (Bird flu). If you treat it you will recover, if you don't it could lead to complications but understand these are the same complications that the "regular" flu can lead to and are no different, in essence.

The danger issue is mainly this: The new form cannot be stopped by vaccines or shots, so older and very young (or otherwise weakened) people can have issues. Typically, elderly people cannot handle a bad flu the same way us youngens can. It can lead to pnuemonia etc. But younger, healthy people can catch this and shake it off with the usual bedrest and attention and thus their bodies have assimilated the latest strain of the flu and beaten it. It is a new form of flu, but the flu nonetheless.

Re: Now in New Zealand [Swine Flu]
 

Be calm, the hype is more dangerous than reality. Once again the media fails us with a bunch of useless sensationalizing. Anybody remember bird flu? Well they may as well play the same tapes as when that appeared. I'd make a bet that more people died from regular flu last year than will die from pig flu this year.

Re: Now in New Zealand [Swine Flu]
 

Interestingly enough, most of the fatalities that have been attributed to swine flu in Mexico (these have not been confirmed by the Mexican health agencies as definitively swine flu related deaths btw) are of young, healthy people.

Re: Now in New Zealand [Swine Flu]
 

Well, many of these were indeed young people with immature immune systems or elderly or otherwise sick/ not taking care of themselves. More than 1000 in mexico are infected with it but only a hundred or so have died. This is mostly to do with Mexico's healthcare system and poverty level. A flu can be a big issue if you can't afford meds. The first death in the US was a 23 month old child. I say again, the flu is the flu. It is no more deadly in itself than all the other strains, but people who aren't vaccinated against it and cannot afford to get sick are susceptible to this one.

Understand, the regular flu can do all this. People die from flu every single year due to lack of treatment, mistreatment, complications, immune system disorders, etc. but is is not reported because it is considered commonplace by now. The media is doing us a disservice by playing up the fear here. It is a pandemic but it is no different than any other strain. Next year, this strain will be in vaccinations. The previous swine outbreak actually had the vaccines causing more damage than the virus.

When you have any flu you do the following. Do not go to work and overwork yourself if you have the flu, drink lots of fluids, take at least 3 proactive medications and get plenty of fresh air (the last one people don't practice much). If you ignore these, you open yourself up to complications and even death, as your body pushes itself to the limit while fighting the virus.

Mr. Gupta is talking fear here. There are no new crazy symptoms with the swine flu. He is not lying per se, but what he's doing is making it seem like swine flu causes new and crazy symtoms with fluid in the lungs caused by an autoimmune response. What he is describing are the complications that can arrive from any flu if you don't take care of it. This is well documented in medicine, and this is what happens to the elderly when they get it. Now, these people may well have these issues arising, but these are considered cases of complications arising. For him to almost suggest these are an integral part of the swine flu symptoms is BS, I just helped treat someone with it last week and they have fully recovered with nothing like this arising, simply because they took care of themselves and did what they needed to do.

Re: Now in New Zealand [Swine Flu]
 

I'd still prefer not to get it. Stuff up my day, that would.

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That never happened. As far as I know, the pandemic with the most casualties was the Spanish flu, and that one only managed to kill about 1-5% of the population. See, it's dangerous to use such highly suggestive formulations as "wipe out" when you don't even know the facts. Of course we have this idea that such pandemics are dangerous but that's because we've been given that image through the media for since before I was born.

Re: Now in New Zealand
 

According to Wikipedia, the Spanish flu of 1918 killed between 20 - 100m people, more than died in WW1. The mortality rate was between 2.5 - 5%, and as you say approx. 5% of the world's population at the time died. Approximately 33% of Europe's population at the time was wiped out.

In comparison, bubonic plague killed approx. 75m people. According to Wikipedia the world's population reduced from 450m in 1350 to 350-375m in 1400. That's an overall reduction of 16 - 20% of the world's population at the time. 50-60% of Europe's population was "wiped out" (excuse the pun).

Obviously no plague or pandemic has totally wiped out the world' population if you take this literally, otherwise none of us would be here. But if you look at the impact the Black Death had on society in 1300 vs other pandemics that occurred either before or after, it was possibly the most significant. Why?

- medical knowledge in the 1400s was very different to 1918 - there were no antibiotics or antiviral drugs
- public health considerations were minimal as nobody knew of the nature of contagious disease at the time
- it significantly changed Europe's social structure - the Roman Catholic Church lost a lot of the power it had as they could not "save people from the Black Death"
- most of the dead were from lower classes of society ie. peasants, farmers, serfs etc. Their deaths had a significant impact on agriculture and the economy
- the feudal system that had been in place declined after the plague, as higher status jobs that had been lost (eg physicians, clergy, gravediggers) had to be replaced, freeing serfs and peasants from duties that the social status they had been born in had locked them into. See below:

- more people began to study medicine as medical texts began to be translated from Greek and Latin into local languages
- the mortality rate caused a lot of people to a ) lose their belief in God, as well as to b ) live in a more decadent manner, as death seemed inevitable

So maybe not "wiping out the world", but it certainly redefined society, particularly in Europe but also in the Middle East. Wiped out what had been there before and replaced it with something new - a new social structure, a new set of values, a new set of beliefs.

This is not to diminish the severity of the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, where more people died. However, I feel that the impact to society was less, because:

- the world's population was much greater at the time, and the social upheaval was not to the same extent as the Black Death
- the fact that WWI had just happened and devastated communities across the US and Europe minimised the societal impact of the Spanish flu pandemic

Of course, tell that to the 20-100m people who died in 1918 and they would likely disagree with me.

In fact, if I were to look at plagues that significantly changed the course of human history, right alongside the Black Death I would put Justinian's Plague in the mid 500s. It prevented Justinian and the Byzantine Empire from ultimately retaking Italy and re-forming the Western Roman Empire, and the Byzantine Empire never reached such heights after it.

Re: Now in New Zealand [Swine Flu]
 

I have found that if you explain to people how the swine flu came about, they are less afraid of it. Animals generally cannot infect us when they have a flu virus, because the virus is not designed to attack our systems, it is designed to attack theirs. It's like a windows virus on a Mac computer - it doesn't know what to do.

At some point, god knows how, some farmer or whatever in Mexico (apparently) suddenly caught the flu from a pig. His immune system may have been compromised at the time, or possibly he was never really exposed to flu virii and had no good antibodies in his system to combat it, but regardless, he caught the flu from this piggy. It morphed, it adapted, it mutated in order to make itself survive and live in his body. He probably just thought he caught one of the other hundred strains of flu but this one spread quickly because it's new. He is most likely still around to tell the tale and is all better now, but perhaps wouldn't realize he was the first case (first case in this recent media frenzy anyways) because the symptoms are the same, and it is dealt with in the same way because, like I said, it's just the flu!

This particular strain of swine flu (and there are more than one strains of swine) has elements of human, bird and swine in it, so there is sepculation that a pig ate either the remains of an infected bird, or its refuse. Pigs live in dirt anywho, so it's very likely. Anyways, don't panic if you happen to get sick, do as you usually would and get some bedrest. I already helped treat someone with it earlier this week and they got over it already.

Re: Now in New Zealand
 

That seems the case. People in general aren't entertained unless there's some great apocalyptic theory or super bug thats around us.

I think the last confirmed case of Swine Flu was back in... 1918? Quite alot of people died then, but we have come quite a way as medical science goes and just as people being clean in general. I think it'll be contained before worse comes to worse.

Re: Now in New Zealand [Swine Flu]
 

God bless, good to know SW.

Re: Now in New Zealand [Swine Flu]
 

Same - I have a friend in NYC who came down with it, he's over it now.

Re: Now in New Zealand [Swine Flu]
 

My wife has a stomach virus since coming back from Cancun. Nobody wants to be near her now. It's a little ridiculous. She was cleared by a doc and given antibiotics.

I told her take a few days off work, since nobody wants her there anyway.

Re: Now in New Zealand [Swine Flu]
 

I think and suspect, that the reason why the above information is not explained by the mass media, or by the surgeon general's office in a comprehensive manner that leaves no doubt as to how dangerous swine flu is, is because this outbreak really helps business. As an example, just by looking around the store today, I noticed that all those GermX hand-sanitizers are all sold out in Walmart, and I noticed they have actually created shelves dedicated to flu meds that stick out of the medical/pharmaceutical isles. These little shelves were half empty today.

Bottom line is this is good for business, and in an ailing economy, for there to be high demand for certain products is an added bonus. So no-one is gonna educate the public about the facts, but they will (like Sanjay Gupta did) skirt around the issue, citing the worst-case scenarios to inspire fear in people. Fear is a big seller. It makes us buy burglar alarms and life insurance and more recently, gas-masks and duct-tape to protect from terrorists. No good businessman is gonna set a customer straight and enlighten them with the truth if it costs them said customer. And this, is the dirty truth where we get to seperate the people from the swines. :D

Re: Now in New Zealand [Swine Flu]
 

Apparently no confirmed cases over here so far. SpiritWarrior, I have a feeling you are right. Media sucks sometimes.
Anyway, hope everybody is ok and not coming down with any form of flu.

Re: Now in New Zealand [Swine Flu]
 

Thanks for the excellent brief explanation, SW! :thumbsup:

Re: Now in New Zealand [Swine Flu]
 

So can I catch the swine flu if I eat pork?
j/k :hehe:

I myself am not really THAT worried about this flu. Of course, ever since I got this absolutely horrible flu about 15 years ago, I've been a chronic handwasher. I wash my hands every time I get home, from wherever. Basically if I got out anywhere, when I return I wash my hands first thing. When the Fedex/UPS guy comes every day at my work, and I have to sign for our package using that special pen thingy that a million people have used, I wash my hands afterwards. I always am aware of what I touch, and how many people may have touched the same thing, and I try not to touch my face in any way (mouth, nose, eyes). We have a public bathroom in the hallway where I work, and before I leave the bathroom I wash my hands, and use the paper towel I dried my hands on to open up the door to exit the bathroom, and also to re-enter my office. I went 8 years straight once without catching one cold or flu. Unfortunately an intern using the copier a lot got me and ruined my 9th year LOL.

Of course nothing is totally foolproof, but I'm really hoping my handwashing skills will keep me from getting sick. The media really needs to turn it down a notch too with all the "pandemic" reports. It is just scaring people and things aren't that bad yet, and they may not ever get that bad. Let's just wait and see, I say, before we freak out.

Re: Now in New Zealand [Swine Flu]
 

Re: Now in New Zealand
 

Last I heard that's more or less a gimme!

Jade Goody and Swine Flu! Two things that just made the next year much easier for me!

:)

Re: Now in New Zealand
 

OMG it's Lanesra!! Long time no see mate.

Re: Now in New Zealand [Swine Flu]
 

necro-bump cause this sucker may be actually start living up to some of it's hype. Sucks xtra to be wrong in cases like this.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...ryId=114132895


Take care peeps!