I'm sure many of you have heard about the new influenza outbreak. Scientists say it is a combination of human, swine and avian flu strains but is generally just being called "swine flu". Based on how it's spreading some scientists believe that it is no longer just a swine flu and it is now passing openly among the human population.

Currently in mexico there are about 1300 confirmed cases and 103 deaths.

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Health/Swine+cases+expected+rise/1538141/story.html

103 divided by 1300 is a mortality rate of 7.9% currently. The 1918 influenza pandemic had a mortality rate of 2.5%.... 3 times lower than what is currently coming out of Mexico.
Also, the majority of deaths are among people aged 20-40 and not the usual infant or elderly populations that influenza usually hits.

It is possible that the mortality rate is a lot lower because this flu is so similar to any regular flu that many cases have gone unreported as swine flu. It is also likely that many countries with better health care systems (US, Canada, Western Europe, etc) will have lower mortality rates than countries like Mexico and third world countries.

Either way this new influenza outbreak has the world on guard. It is quickly getting out of hand and cases have been reported all over the world. Hopefully someone can get it under control and prevent too many people from dying but I think we should be prepared for a potentially deadly pandemic.

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The only reported deaths have been in mexico. However, there are confirmed cases in the southern US, California and Texas so far.... I think there are also some cases in NYC but I'm not sure about that.... nevermind, found an article confirming at least 20 cases in New York City. And I saw Kansas and Ohio on a list with suspsected cases as well as Nova Scotia, and BC in Canada.

Countries affected so far (with confirmed cases) - Mexico, USA, Canada, Spain, UK, New Zealand.

Suspected cases in - Brazil, France, Israel, and Australia. It is entirely possible that within a few days many more countries will end up on these lists but for now that's the list.

I can't find a good total on number of worldwide confirmed cases.... but I did see an updated number for deaths in Mexico of 149, but I have no idea if that is accurate or not.

It seems like this is moving around the world fairly well.... the middle east and africa are for the most part secure. Israel may have a confirmed case but how likely is it that an Israeli is going to go outside of Israel anytime soon . Still pretty scary to see updates on confirmed cases and deaths jump like they have. I'm not sure how much longer attempts to keep this from spreading will be successful. Schools and businesses can only stay shut down for so long....

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yeah, anything is possible when it comes to bacteria and viruses. There are all sorts of theories about the origin of a lot of diseases that have been discovered recently. I'm not sure how likely it is that influenza would be used as some sort of bio-terrorism.

I do know that this has been talked about for several years now and that many in the medical community have been expecting some sort of flu outbreak.... they just weren't sure exactly where it was going to come from.

I'm also not sure how you mix flu strains from birds, pigs and humans.... that is part of what makes no sense to me....

either way the more I learn about this the more worried I am about a global epidemic. Countries like Canda, the US, Australia (mostly just naming countries that board members are from) probably won't be hit hard because we have pretty good healthcare systems overall.... it's countries like India, China, areas of the middle east, Eastern Europe, any really densely populated cities and Africa that could be hit extremely hard.

I just had a scary thought.... 2.5% of 6.9 billion people, approximately the current population of the world.... is 172,500,000. That's 172.5 million people. That's if every gets infected and a mortality rate of 2.5%.... if the mortality rate is as high as 8% (which I really don't think it is) but for the effect.... about 550,000,000 people could die.... that's 550 million.

Now I don't think it would be that bad.... but I think there are moments in history where people said that.... and were really surprised at how bad things got.

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hahaha, I've played that game! So fun. I was only able to kill the entire world off once.... most of the time I miss madagascar or new zealand. Still a super fun game.... I love collecting a lot of points up and then mutating the disease like crazy and watching people die off. I can only imagine I would be a super villian if I had a power of some sort....

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yeah, I'm figuring that is the case too.... makes me think it's not as serious as it could be....

although, even if the mortality rate goes down it is still above the mortality rate of the spanish influenza of 1918 which killed 20-40 million people.

A lot is riding on how well they can keep it contained.... it is entirely possible that there are 2-3 times as many people infected (or more) and they just don't know it because they are just getting average flu symptoms....

we're just going to have to wait and see how bad it gets.... for many of us all we can do is try and not get exposed to it.

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well, the outbreak seems to have originated in Mexico City and there is a link between most of the people that have since gotten it and travel to that area.

Some people knew someone who had been there or had been there themselves.

The problem is we're isolating people after they got back which means that they could have come into contact with hundreds or thousands of people before this was recognized as a problem. There could be tons of people that are carrying the virus and don't even know it yet. The virus is a strange mutation of three kinds of flu so it's effects are probably unpredictable. The incubation period could be a week or more before symptoms show up but people could still be contagious in the time frame....

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it is overly hyped for sure, but I think part of the reason it is so hyped is because of how many people have gotten swine flu. Sure it's not abnormal for up to 10,000 people to die of the flu in the US but that is of the normal human flu and is almost totally seniors and young children. The swine flu has killed otherwise normal healthy adults (or as normal and healthy as any of us are).... that is part of what is scary.

The other potentially scary thing is that this could have been quite deadly to humans. The mix of flu viruses could have created a much stronger than normal flu. Thankfully it looks like it hasn't because most of the cases outside of Mexico have been quite mild.

And that 1 kid that did die was transported out of Mexico to be treated but died while in the US.... at least that's what I remember hearing.

Either way it sounds like this is going to die down in a week or 2 once cases stop showing up.... at least that's the hope. I don't think anyone here really wants a deadly pandemic to sweep the globe....

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I agree that it will continue to spread but the likelihood is that it won't be too deadly. New estimates have suggested that hundreds of thousands could be infected and either didn't know or showed such mild symptoms that they weren't even recognized. This means that the mortality rate could be less than 1%.... which is a very good thing.

But yeah, the name needs to change.... it might be easier to just refer to it as the Mexican flu, or the Mexico City flu... or something like that.... name it after either the person who got it first or the place it originated.

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