

World health chief says it may be too late to contain swine flu - swombat
http://www.mercurynews.com/health/ci_12227047?source=rss

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swombat
More information about the Spanish Flu, for those who somehow haven't heard of
it, is available on Wikipedia: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu>

Extra nice quotes:

 _The global mortality rate from the 1918/1919 pandemic is not known, but is
estimated at 2.5 to 5% of the human population, with 20% or more of the world
population suffering from the disease to some extent._

 _This pandemic has been described as "the greatest medical holocaust in
history" and may have killed more people than the Black Death._

 _Another unusual feature of this pandemic was that it mostly killed young
adults, with 99% of pandemic influenza deaths occurring in people under 65,
and more than half in young adults 20 to 40 years old._

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ftse
Sixty-eight deaths from around one thousand infections is a lethality of 7%.
That alone should make us take this very seriously until we have more data.

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eduardoflores
In the State of Mexico (metro area of Mexico City) there has been 3 deaths out
of 44 cases of Influenza (not all confirmed to be H1N1) which is 6.8%
lethality

Update: On San Luis Potosi (some 400Km north Mexico City, second biggest
outbreak) has been reported 62 cases and 5 deaths, 8% <http://bit.ly/15VOOt>

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jrockway
The article is a bit alarmist. Although "humans have no natural immunity", it
looks like it responds well to drugs.

I am not losing much sleep over thoughts of dying from this.

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patrickg-zill
The real question is, will there be a large amount of variance among
populations in different countries? You cannot necessarily extrapolate from
Mexico City to other places since climate, diet, and no doubt other factors,
all play a role.

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capablanca
WTF is a "world health chief" ?

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menloparkbum
_WTF is a "world health chief" ?_

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_chan>

~~~
jibiki
A famous quote comes to mind...

<http://bash.org/?4780>

~~~
diN0bot
quote:

"<Thumb> do you know of any major organizations that are similar the CDC?

<Lucent> who?

<Thumb> center for disease control

<Lucent> i said WHO

<Thumb> what? i'm asking you

<Lucent> World Health Organization"

