Swine flu, also known as the H1N1 virus, is a flu that people can get from pigs and sometimes spread to each other by coughing and sneezing. When you get it it seems like an ordinary flu: you cough, have a fever, feel terrible, maybe throw up, etc. But this one can turn into pneumonia and kill you.
Symptoms: a temperature above 38 C (100.4 F) and at least two of the following:
- unusual tiredness,
- headache,
- runny nose,
- sore throat,
- shortness of breath or cough,
- loss of appetite,
- aching muscles,
- diarrhoea or vomiting.
It might be swine flu or it might just be a plain old flu. Stay home.
Call your doctor directly if:
- you have a serious existing illness that weakens your immune system, such as cancer,
- you are pregnant,
- you have a sick child under one,
- your condition suddenly gets much worse, or
- your condition is still getting worse after seven days (five for a child).
Early tests show it can be cured by taking Tamiflu and Relenza.
To keep from getting it the best thing is to always wash your hands and keep your distance from anyone you think might have it. You cannot get it from eating cooked pork since cooking kills it. You only need a mask if you are taking care of someone who has it.
There have been outbreaks of swine flu in America in 1976, the Philippines in 2007 and in Mexico in 2009. The one in Mexico is spreading to other countries as I write this (April 27th 2009). Over 1600 people are suspected of having it, 103 of them dead so far. In America 20 have it, one is in the hospital, none are dead. (It has since spread to the whole world – October 2009).
In 1976 when an American soldier died of swine flu and hundreds more got sick, the president took no chances and urged everyone to get a swine flu shot. About a fifth of Americans did and no one else died of swine flu – though more than 30 died from side effects of the shots!
The president took such extreme measures because in 1918 the very same virus, H1N1, killed 50 million people. It was brought home by the soldiers from the First World War. Over 20% of the world got sick. It killed more people than the war itself.
No one knows yet how deadly this swine flu will be. Over a million deaths is not out of the question. The worst of it will come early in 2010 when it will have spread widely and winter hits North America, Europe and Asia.
Other dangerous flus:
- The 1957 Asian flu killed 2 million;
- The 1968 Hong Kong flu killed 1 million, mostly old people in Asia.
Bird flu has killed 257 so far and is still going. It is very deadly but you can only get it from a bird.
The last big outbreak of a disease was Sars in 2003 in China. Over 8,000 got sick and 774 died, mostly in East Asia. Because of that, health authorities are better prepared to handle the new swine flu.
Update (2020): The 2009 pandemic wound up killing 203,000 worldwide.
See also:
- The CDC page about swine flu
- The WHO page on swine flu – who give the current flu the snappy name of A(H1N1)
- The NHS page
Abagond 
swine flu is a hoax.
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What makes you say that?
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i’ll find you some info.
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this artical is very nice about swine flu and others, to knows about it and make your self to be. According to my idea kill all the pigs. because of pigs are not important then humans.
Best Regards
Awais Munir
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Killing all pigs is pretty extreme. The main effect would be to send pig farmers and their families into poverty. That alone would cause more disease than you would have prevented.
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I hate a swine flu.It is bad.So people,try to take care of your ownself.Meet the doctor.Thats important.
Unknown.
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You are all idiots, go kill yourselves, learn where Swine Flu originates and how it doesn’t come from Swine, but has similarities to the Flu that Swine (pigs) get.
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Well, if they indeed learned anything back then, then they certainly have forgotten it already. The new Wuhan coronavirus epidemic is clusterf*ck.
In Hong Kong, what people did learn from SARS, and still seem to remember is how to panic. Back in 2003, about 300 of that 774 SARS death toll was in HK, and a couple dozen of that death toll was in a single apartment block, where residents who did not know each other and did not have any direct contact with each other still managed spread it to each other, through the drains releasing airborne droplets into each flat on top of each other.
There are so many rumours and conspiracy theories about the situation on the ground in mainland PRC cities. I hope they are not true, but I never doubt what the CCP is capable of.
The ones I tend to believe are the transparency and robustness of the system for collecting and reporting figures. They do not have enough testkits to test everyone, so non-asymptomatic persons are still spreading, and those who get sick or even die from the disease might not have ever been tested in the first place. We are already well aware of the cover-up during SARS.
One conspiracy theory: This is a lesson to Hong Kong to stop their mass street protests.
Well, they have indeed stopped for now, but the protests are not ending. They have just caused it to morph into different ways. Over 15,000 Hospital Authority employees joined a new union (which formed originally a few months ago to protest against the police violence sending so many to the hospital) and last week they engaged in a week long strike (starting small, but grew as the went on) to try to get the HK to close the border with the mainland. Over a dozen new labour unions have formed since the protests and they have gotten a kickstart with this virus epidemic.
Another risk if there is any shred of truth to that conspiracy theory: Mainlanders are down right angry now, and mass street protests could spread into other provinces if the CCP does not manage it well and
Anyhow, seems like we are completely stuck here. Philippines has barred entry to all residents of HK, Macau, PRC, and United Airlines has cancelled all flights to USA from PRC and HK. Other carriers have greatly reduced their flights. If I were to go to the USA, there is mandatory 14 day quarantine. Local meetings and activities were cancelled. I have a few friends who flew to USA for the Chinese New Year period and are staying put there for now.
People who can, work from home.
Meanwhile, we got bills to pay, sh!t.
Well, I understand that films like Contagion (2011) are now popular again in the shadow of this new pandemic. It was undoubtedly based on the experience with SARS and H1N1, but it just goes to show how far we still need to go to manage these crises.
But, it also looks like this Wuhan Coronavirus is here to stay with humans indefinitely like H1N1 Swine Flu. We can only hope that it will die down in April and May like most seasonal flu epidemics.
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An almost sober assessment of a serious issue from the biggest bs artist on this blog! Friend Jefe couldn’t resist blaming the CCP because the Wuhan leaders of that party didn’t listen to the warning of the experts. Naturally, no crisis should be wasted to push the regime change agenda.
Hope springs eternal: “There are so many rumours and conspiracy theories about the situation on the ground in mainland PRC cities. I hope they are not true, but I never doubt what the CCP is capable of.
The ones I tend to believe are the transparency and robustness of the system for collecting and reporting figures. They do not have enough testkits to test everyone, so non-asymptomatic persons are still spreading, and those who get sick or even die from the disease might not have ever been tested in the first place. We are already well aware of the cover-up during SARS.
One conspiracy theory: This is a lesson to Hong Kong to stop their mass street protests.
Well, they have indeed stopped for now, but the protests are not ending. They have just caused it to morph into different ways. Over 15,000 Hospital Authority employees joined a new union (which formed originally a few months ago to protest against the police violence sending so many to the hospital) and last week they engaged in a week long strike (starting small, but grew as the went on) to try to get the HK to close the border with the mainland. Over a dozen new labour unions have formed since the protests and they have gotten a kickstart with this virus epidemic.
Another risk if there is any shred of truth to that conspiracy theory: Mainlanders are down right angry now, and mass street protests could spread into other provinces if the CCP does not manage it well and
Anyhow, seems like we are completely stuck here. Philippines has barred entry to all residents of HK, Macau, PRC, and United Airlines has cancelled all flights to USA from PRC and HK. Other carriers have greatly reduced their flights. If I were to go to the USA, there is mandatory 14 day quarantine. Local meetings and activities were cancelled. I have a few friends who flew to USA for the Chinese New Year period and are staying put there for now.”
The CCP would spread a virus that causes billions of dollars to stop HK protests!? Does the virus cause madness? If so, jefe should have himself checked.
Jefe, such crises are hard to deal with even for the USA. You might enjoy, or not, this article from the dreaded Global Times: ”
Why the West is overreacting to coronavirus
By Md Enamul Hassan Source:Global Times Published: 2020/2/11 12:58:29
Aerial photo taken on February 2, 2020 shows the Huoshenshan Hospital, which was built in 10 days and put into operation on the same day to fight the novel coronavirus pneumonia, in Wuhan, Central China’s Hubei Province. Photo: Xinhua
There is a saying that faults are thick where love is thin. This proverb holds fully true when it comes to the treatment by the West, especially the US, of China. The US government and US media seem to lie in wait for an opportunity to tarnish the image of China. The US deals with China affairs as if the largest economy of the world is suffering from some sort of pending-replacement anxiety.
No matter what happens in China, the West leaves no stone unturned to mislead the world as it spreads negative, twisted falsehoods. The West has already proven its vindictive and anxious mentality with a large-scale propaganda war against China. Western media constantly wages smear campaigns against the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Xinjiang and Tibet, two of China’s autonomous regions.
From the very inception of the outbreak of the novel coronavirus pneumonia (NCP) in Wuhan, Central China’s Hubei Province, the West – the so-called saviors of humanity and guardians of human rights – has shown its ugliest face to the world. They have acted out of their old habits as they demean China and its people. But China has taken swift, effective and successful measures to curb the outbreak of NCP. The Chinese government has spared no efforts in this regard, including quarantining cities and constructing a 1,000-bed hospital in just 10 days.
China has stopped at nothing in its attempt to prevent the further spreading of the virus and safeguard the world from the contagion. China’s comprehensive and rigorous prevention and control measures have helped the world make necessary preparations to prevent and control the spread of the epidemic.
People around the world have sent messages of encouragement to the Chinese people in support of their fight against NCP. The leaders of different countries and international organizations have also expressed condolences, sympathy, and solidarity to the Chinese leadership and people in their unprecedented battle against the epidemic.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said China deserves the international community’s gratitude and respect for having taken very serious measures to contain the NCP, which have prevented widespread export of cases overseas. The speed that China detected the outbreak, isolated the virus, sequenced the genome and shared it with WHO and the world are very impressive, so is China’s commitment to transparency and support of other countries and regions.
In many ways, China is setting a new standard for outbreak response. China’s efforts to combat the disease deserve respect and appreciation, and are worth learning. These efforts not only reflect China’s high sense of responsibility for the lives and health of its own people, but also its strong support for global disease prevention and control. The WHO also believes that China will effectively contain and eventually defeat the epidemic.
But the West and its media remain unhappy with China’s measures to fight the epidemic. They are fishing in troubled waters and overreacting to NCP. The US has raised its China travel advisory to the highest level and temporarily banned the entry of all foreigners who traveled to China in the past 14 days starting from February 2. Several other Western countries have followed the suit.
The Western media have been running news of the epidemic as if the Chinese and China-made products are themselves the virus. Some of them are trying to establish that the coronavirus is made in China. The West is doing its utmost to create panic in China and to demonize Chinese people. They would like to hamper trade and business in China, thereby isolating the second-largest economy from the rest of the world.
Though the West has been overreacting to the coronavirus outbreak, they have remained silent about just how deadly common influenza is in the US. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, leading national public health institute of the US, estimates that so far there have been at least 22 million flu illnesses, 210,000 hospitalizations and 12,000 deaths from flu during the 2019-20 season.
The West hasn’t been so clamorous about the outbreaks of Ebola and Swine flu viruses, even though the rate of infections and deaths of those viruses were far more than that of the novel coronavirus. Such a vivid double standard treatment by the West proves that they have been suffering from the pending replacement anxiety brought on by China’s rise.
The author is a former diplomatic correspondent of the Daily Sun, an English-language daily newspaper of Bangladesh. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn“
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Update (2020): The 2009 pandemic wound up killing 203,000 worldwide.
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