Swine Flu.
It is OK if you are willing to risk lives because those with ARDS,
even in ICU, only 50% survive. Just imagine those that stay at home in
the belief that they are previously healthy.
Overall the article reflects the facts but the present of the 2nd wave
due to mutation is not supported by any facts, or even mathematical
modelling. Even it it mutates, not all viruses mutate at the same
time.
Once it mutates, it will spread slowly, taking 6 months before it its
effect is seen due to the exponential growth. It is already seen with
the current trend of 10 per month. In just 3 months, the number of
deaths is already 1,000. By the end of this month, the number of
deaths should be 10,000 but testing is now burdened to the point that
it won't record this number.
The worst case scenario is already happening. Varients of Tamil-flu
resistant Swine Flu has already appeared but it was behind by a few
months. Until now, it is still very rare and will take 6 months before
its damage become visible.
Let alone a mutation in winter. It will take another 6 months for it
to be visible through sheer number.
Better use up the Tamilflu stock first while waiting for the
inevitable Tamilflu resistant virus to appear. When it became
widespread in 3 months, time, Tamilflu will become as useless as junk.
**********Pandemic virus could get nastier in year two
(AFP) – 20 hours ago
PARIS — The swine flu is unlikely to become more virulent as it
spreads through the northern hemisphere this winter, but could re-
emerge a year later in a more deadly form, a top expert said Thursday.
"We should get through the winter relatively easily, I don't think the
virus will mutate before then," said John Oxford, a professor of
virology at Britain's St Bartholomew's and the Royal London Hospital.
"There will be more people in hospital and more deaths, but
essentially it will be the same virus we have experienced in the
summer, just more of it," he told AFP in an interview.
After winter has passed, however, the pressures of natural selection
could favour the emergence of more deadly strains of the A(H1N1)
virus, Oxford explained.
"For the moment, the virus is running around the world finding lots of
young people and infecting them. It is doing very nicely, thank you,
why should it change?", he said by phone.
"But once the virus has infected about a third of the world's
population -- which is what we expect -- it will find less
'susceptibles'. That is when mutants will have a selective advantage."
It would be a serious mistake to think that once the impending flu
season is over, the danger will have passed, he added.
Oxford said he had just returned from Australia, where he met front-
line doctors who were concerned about an emerging pattern in swine flu
patients.
Whether they are people in high risk groups -- the obese, pregnant
women, asthmatics -- or young adults with no underlying conditions, an
alarming number of patients wind up in intensive care units.
"One minute they are OK in a hospital bed, the next minute they are in
intensive care," he said.
There have been more than 100 confirmed deaths from the pandemic H1N1
strain in Australia, which is just emerging from the southern
hemisphere winter.
Epidemiologists sifting through data from other countries have also
found similar -- and disquieting -- patterns.
French epidemiologist Antoine Flahault reported a 100-fold increase,
compared to seasonal flu, in the number of swine flu deaths in
Mauritius and New Caledonia attributed directly to the virus itself
rather than secondary bacterial infections or underlying conditions.
Many of those deaths were caused by acute respiratory disease syndrome
(ARDS), which requires intensive-care treatment for an average of
three weeks. Only 50 percent of ARDS patients survive.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
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