Thread: Latest on Mexican flue pandemic.

Mexico's president had a closed door meeting with members of his government. The secretary of Health, José Angel Córdova Villalobos, announced that all schools, from Kindergarten to college, in Mexico City and the State of Mexico will be closed due to the flu virus. And advised people to avoid public places, avoid handshakes and kisses on the mouth and the cheek.



As of now, 5 people have died in Mexico City due to this flu chain and 120 have been hospitalized.



I'll send more details later.

County Confirms 2 More Cases Of Swine Flu In San Diego


County Confirms 2 More Cases Of Swine Flu In San Diego


Two members of the same family in San Diego County have contracted swine flu, bringing to three the number of local cases of the disease that normally infects pigs, health officials announced today.

Additionally, an Imperial County resident was diagnosed with the same strain of swine influenza at a San Diego facility, according to the county's Health and Human Services Agency.

Earlier this week, state and local health officials announced that a 10-year-old in San Diego County and a 9-year-old in Imperial County had contracted swine flu and have since recovered.

So far, a total of three San Diego residents and two people in Imperial County have contracted swine flu, according to the HHSA.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also reported two cases of the disease in San Antonio, Texas.

"We are working closely with the CDC, the California Department of Public Health and the Imperial County Public Health Department to investigate and track these cases," Dr. Wilma Wooten, the county's public health officer, said in a statement.

"While sporadic cases of swine flu have previously been seen in humans in the U.S., this strain of the swine flu has not been previously detected," Wooten said. "The symptoms in these cases have been mild and are similar to regular influenza."

Wooten said health officials expect to identify more cases of swine flu locally due to stepped-up surveillance.

Swine flu is a respiratory disease found in pigs that sometimes infects humans, according to the HHSA. Human cases of swine flu usually occur in people who have been in close proximity to infected pigs, but that did not appear to be the case in the newest cases, health officials said.

Symptoms of swine flu in people are similar to the symptoms of regular seasonal influenza and include fever, lethargy, coughing and a lack of appetite, according to the HHSA.

According to the CDC, there have been a few deaths reported related to swine influenza.

http://www.cbs8.com/Global/story.asp?S=10239824

VIDEO of Mexican Health Secretary shutting down all schools to prevent a flu pandemic.

Audio is in Spanish.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DNsFFVHvb8

How nice..........and our borders are now sealed, right?

Oh no, that's right.........if the traitors running this country can kill off as many Americans from natural causes as they possibly can, it will make their jobs that much easier.

Swine Flu, Mexico Lung Illness Heighten Pandemic Risk (Update1)
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By Jason Gale

April 24 (Bloomberg) -- Disease trackers are trying to determine whether a previously unseen strain of influenza in the U.S. is related to more than 130 cases of severe respiratory illness in Mexico and may spark a pandemic.

A new variant of H1N1 swine influenza has sickened at least seven patients in California and Texas, the Atlanta-based U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said yesterday. Mexico’s Health Minister Jose Cordova canceled classes in the capital, Mexico City, today and recommended citizens avoid public places after 20 fatalities from an illness possibly caused by a flu virus.

Scientists in both countries and Canada are studying the illnesses to determine whether they pose a larger public health threat. A pandemic can start when a novel influenza type-A virus, including swine flu, begins spreading, since no one has a natural immunity. The so-called 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, which may have killed as many as 50 million people, began when an avian flu virus jumped to people, experts said.

“The infection of humans with a novel influenza-A virus infection of animal origins, as has happened here, is of concern because of the risk, albeit small, that this could represent the appearance of viruses with pandemic potential,â€

I would urge everyone to keep a close eye on this. There have been 800 cases of this severe flu with 60 deaths in the past several weeks in Mexico City alone. If this worsens or continues for any length of time, Mexicans are going to be crossing the US border in droves to take advantage of our superior health care system. In doing so they will spread this serious illness throughout the US. They are NOT going to care about that. Our cowardly government will not act to secure our borders and stop all travel from Mexico until it is too late for fear of offending Mexico and the all-important hispanics in the US. You know it and so do I. IF this situation starts to deteriorate, call your senators and representatives and insist that all possible measures be taken to safeguard the health of Americans.

Yay, let's import more stuff willy-nilly!

I remember my biology, and one thing that fasinated me was viruses. They will survive when nothing else does, because they mutate like crazy. Viruses and roaches, because they can adapt so quickly. By the time they figure something out a new strain is on it's way. You would think scientists would be on this, if for no other reason than world travel. I mean what did they expect would happen? What does it take for this country to put a stop to it?

Mexico City suspends schools over flu epidemic

Associated Press
10:03 AM PDT, April 24, 2009

MEXICO CITY -- Mexico City closed schools across the metropolis of 20 million today after at least 16 people died and more than 900 others fall ill from what health officials suspect is a new strain of swine flu. World health officials worried that it could mark the start of a flu pandemic.

The World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland said at least 57 have died in the outbreak, although it wasn't yet clear if this larger number of deaths was due to swine flu.



Swine flu found in 7 people in California, Texas
Swine flu? The plague? What's up in San Diego?
"We are very, very concerned," said Thomas Abraham, a spokesman for the agency. "We have what appears to be a novel virus and it has spread from human to human." If international spread is confirmed, that meets WHO's criteria for raising the pandemic alert level, he added.

Abraham said WHO today raised their internal alert system, allowing them to divert more money and personnel to dealing with the outbreak. "It's all hands on deck at the moment." Abraham said.

Mexico's Health Secretary, Jose Cordova, said only 16 of the deaths have been confirmed to have been caused by the new strain, through testing at the government's laboratories. Samples from 44 other people who died were still being tested. The health department put the total number of people sickened at around 943 nationwide.


Cordova said samples were sent to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, to determine whether it's the same virus infecting seven people in Texas and California. As of now, tests show the flu is a "new, different strain ... that originally came from pigs."

"We certainly have 60 deaths that we can't be sure are from the same virus, but it is probable," Cordova told MVS radio in Mexico City.

Cordova described a chilling new strain that had killed only people among the normally less-vulnerable young and mid-adult age range. One possibility is that the most vulnerable segments of the population -- infants and the aged -- had been vaccinated against other strains, and that those vaccines may be providing some protection.

But Dr. Anne Schuchat of the CDC said "at this point, we do not have any confirmations of swine influenza in Mexico" of the kind that sickened seven California and Texas residents.

All seven U.S. victims recovered from a strain of the flu that combines pig, bird and human viruses in a way that researchers have not seen before.

Cordova also told MVS radio in Mexico City that Mexican health officials can't be sure that the deaths "are from the same virus, but it is probable."

Closing the schools kept 6.1 million students home from day care centers through high schools, and thousands more were affected as colleges and universities closed down. Parents scrambled to juggle work and family concerns due to what local media said was the first citywide schools closure since Mexico City's devastating 1985 earthquake.

Lillian Molina and other teachers at the Montessori's World preschool scrubbed down their empty classrooms with Clorox, soap and Lysol today between fielding calls from worried parents. While the school has had no known cases among its students, Molina supported the government's decision to shutter classes, especially in preschools.

"It's great they are taking precautions," she said. "I think it's a really good idea."

Authorities advised capital residents not to go to work if they felt ill, and to wear surgical masks if they had to move through crowds. A wider shutdown -- perhaps including shutting down government offices -- was being considered.

"It is very likely that classes will be suspended for several days," Cordova said. "We will have to evaluate, and let's hope this doesn't happen, the need to restrict activity at workplaces."

Still, U.S. health officials said it's not yet a reason for alarm in the United States. The five in California and two in Texas have all recovered, and testing indicates some common antiviral medications seem to work against the virus.

Schuchat of the CDC said officials believe the new strain can spread human-to-human, which is unusual for a swine flu virus. The CDC is checking people who have been in contact with the seven confirmed U.S. cases, who all became ill between late March and mid-April.

The U.S. cases are a growing medical mystery because it's unclear how they caught the virus. The CDC said none of the seven people were in contact with pigs, which is how people usually catch swine flu. And only a few were in contact with each other.

CDC officials described the virus as having a unique combination of gene segments not seen in people or pigs before. The bug contains human virus, avian virus from North America and pig viruses from North America, Europe and Asia.

Health officials have seen mixes of bird, pig and human virus before, but never such an intercontinental combination with more than one pig virus in the mix.

Scientists keep a close eye on flu viruses that emerge from pigs. The animals are considered particularly susceptible to both avian and human viruses and a likely place where the kind of genetic reassortment can take place that might lead to a new form of pandemic flu, said Dr. John Treanor, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

The virus may be something completely new, or it may have been around for a while but was only detected now because of improved lab testing and disease surveillance, CDC officials said.

The virus was first detected in two children in southern California -- a 10-year-old boy in San Diego County and a 9-year-old girl in neighboring Imperial County.

It's not known if anyone is getting sick from the virus right now, CDC officials said.

It's also not known if the seasonal flu vaccine that Americans got last fall and early this year protects against this type of virus. People should wash their hands and take other customary precautions, CDC officials said.

latimes.com/