Influenza for Dummies

Okay guys - I know it is weird out there but let me see if I can bring some facts to light:

• Influenza is a VIRUS.
• There are 3 broad types A, B, and C A is transmitted from ANIMALS (get it - A for ANIMAL) B and C can only be transmitted by humans, animals do not get or pass on B or C.
• Currently there are several influenzas globally. The current two concerning A types are the AVIAN flu and the SWINE flu. The AVIAN flu caused the great pandemic of 1918 that killed off almost 1/3 of the world poplulation. It has not been transmitted from person to person yet. The swine flu is approaching pandemic status but every year we have a flu, it approaches pandemic status. It just depends on how severe that flu gets
• We had the swine flu in 1976. One boy at Fort Dix died, the goverment freaked and the population got a vaccine, more people died from the vaccine than the flu. It was a mild flu season that year.
• In a normal flu season, about 10 percent of the people that catch it will die, usually babies and older people. The death in Houston was from a 23 month old that came up from Mexico. I can't find which strain she had ... The Swine or the Zoo
• Some viruses mutate or change quickly. These are the ones that are gonna kill you.
• The swine flu in the US is NOT the mutating type (yet).
• The flu that is down in Mexico city is a weird combination flu. It has CHARACTERISTICS of avian, swine and human influenza virus. It has an RNA pattern that has never been documented before. It IS the mutating type. I call it the Zoo flu
• You can get a secondary infection of Pneumonia during ANY flu and that is what usually kills.
• "Confirmed Cases" - be cautious of this term. Here is how the procedure goes.. .Monday afternoon- Billy Joe Jim Bob goes to the ER not feeling well. He gets a "rapid influenza" test (which we are running out of). That tests proves positive for Influenza A (insert suspense music here). So Billy Joe Jim Bob gets a q-tip stuck all the way up his nose and that "sample" is sent to THE LAB - which is in Austin Texas. Tuesday Noonish the LAB gets the sample and puts it in que with the THOUSANDS of other samples. Earliest of Wednesday late afternoon to Thursday Mid day the results are recorded. If positive, they report to the CDC and are released on FRIDAY. If Billy Joe Jim Bob was positive, he may not know till FRIDAY. By then he is either on his last day of the illness and has exposed X number of people OR dead.
• There is no "REAL TIME" influenza map. If you use the example above, they are about 48-72 hours behind. Remember that.

Feel free to ask questions. Just do not go to the hospital or the doctors unless you absolutely positively have to!

Guess who started to plan for this:

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/nov2005/2005-11-01-01.asp