Let's not overreact: Some Swine Flu Facts

The incubation period for the flu is 2-5 days.[1] This means that if you went to Mexico two weeks ago and have not shown symptoms, you do not have the flu. If a co-worker went to Cancun over Christmas, she does not have Swine Flu.

You can not catch swine flu from eating pork.[2] Cooking pork kills the swine flu virus.

There are drugs to treat swine flu patients.[2] Four drugs are used to treat the flu: amantadine, rimantadine, oseltamivir and zanamivir. The recent strain of swine flu has been resistent to amantadine and rimantadine, oseltamivir or zanamivir seem to be effective.

In the U.S. alone, 36,000 people die each year of (non-swine) flu and about 42,000 die of car accidents.[3][4] With one confirmed death in the U.S. so far and 159 in Mexico, swine flu is still very low on the list of things likely to kill you.




[1] - http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/news/20031205/raise-your-flu-iq
[2] - http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/key_facts.htm
[3] - http://www.cdc.gov/flu/keyfacts.htm
[4] - http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx

Video: US Health and Human Services news conference on H1N1

U.S. Health and Human Services news conference update on swine flu:

Spanish and Swine Flu Targets 25-35 Year Olds

One of the key differences of the Spanish Flu which killed 50 to 100 million people in 1918/1919 was the fact that young, healthy victims died at a much higher rate due to the way it attacked the body. The virus causes one's immune system to go into a feedback loop called a "Cytokine Storm" in which T-Cells, which normally fight the infection, are produced at a tremendous rate and cause the victim's body to shut down. In many cases the inflammation would severly obstruct the lungs causing the face to have a blue tint. Young adults, with strong immune systems, would succumb to the flu in a matter of days, whereas, children and older adults died at a much smaller rate.



Initial reports of the Swine Flu from Mexico indicate a similar pattern of it targeting young adults as the Spanish Flu of 1918 did. This is a large part of the reason why the response from government and health officials has been so strong.

Swine Flu Google Map

A biomedical researcher from Pittsburgh has put together a great Google Map of the currently confirmed Swine Flu cases.