Swine Flu Victims: A point worth noting

[Mike 03]

While I'm not one to become hysterical over these preliminary reports, one thing is worriesome, and that is the age of the victims who have died. If reports are to be believed, the victims have ranged in age from the 20s to the mid and late 40s.

What distinguishes the so-called "Spanish Flu" pandemic of 1918, as well as the H5N1 (Avian) from ordinary influenza is that these are respiratory viruses that kill healthy young adults, sparing the usual victims who are the elderly, immune compromised and infants. These strains do this by eliciting an overresponse from an otherwise very robust, healthy immune system, creating a cytokine storm, and usually infecting the lungs. The victim drowns in his own secretions, basically. So those with normal, healthy immune systems are the victims of these more dangerous viral strains.

This is one red flag that I believe should be considered before waving this off as another instance of premature hysteria.

Just my two cents.

[readmoreoften]

1. Great.

So much for trying to stay away from antibiotics and keeping healthy. Foiled a-gain!!!

[Spider Jerusalem]

2. Antibiotics do fuck-all for viral infections. And influenza is a virus.

[ananda]

3. That's all very interesting but it doesn't explain why..

young people in the USA are surviving it fine,
but those in Mexico are not.

I like the theory about the way the virus acts
relative to population clustering.

[Mike 03]

8. Perhaps because they are getting medical care before it gets into

their lungs and becomes a lower respiratory infection.

But I will be curious to see why this is too.

[TahitiNut]

4. So, smokers are LESS at risk? Ironic. Really ironic.

:rofl:

[Mike 03]

9. Huh?

They may well be. I'm not sure that smokers have compromised immune systems, but I would expect they would.

The median age of victims here in the U.S. is 16. They have not died, but they appear to be more vulnerable than their older counterparts (i.e., parents).

[uppityperson]

5. YAY! I'm in 50's!!!

[MercutioATC]

6. PLUS it only has a 7% kill rate...PLUS it's already gone H-H.

7% is almost three times as deadly as the 1918 flu that killed 500k Americans and 20M people worldwide...yet 7% is low enough to not kill off enough of the hosts to slow down the spread of the virus.

And, unlike H5N1, this bug has already gone human-human.


It may fizzle out, but by early reports this one has the necessary components to go pandemic.

[Mike 03]

10. I hope you are right, but it's a bit early to know what the kill rate is.

Remember, the flu of 1918 smoldered, in that it appeared in the summer, went away, then came back in the winter and that is when it made most of its kills.

[Vinca]

7. It's a good day to be a geezer.

:fistbump:

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. Them facts will make you one who is panicking

:-)

Welcome to the club

:hi:

[EmeraldCityGrl]

12. I wonder if there are any outbreaks in the military population.

Seems like that would be a perfect breeding ground for this disease.

[bobbert]

13. Lack of Water

I have been at work all day, but I can't believe nobody has been talking about this so I'm going to try and flood threads with it for a couple minutes.

http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=331618&CategoryId=14091

The swine flu has only been confirmed in 26 people. The other deaths may be related, but there's no proof yet that the mortality rate is greater than the 1.5% of a typical flu.

When the 'outbreak' affects a clean city with water, let me know and I'll worry.

[Danger Mouse]

14. It has NOT been verified that a cytokine storm has been killing people.

So far that's just speculation.
Nor has the death total 'blamed' on swine flu been CONFIRMED as swine flu.