Word: influenza
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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International health officials who had been on high alert since reports of a new influenza virus first surfaced in late April had also begun to relax--just a bit. Scientists at the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found few serious or deadly cases outside Mexico and little evidence of sustained spread of the disease in most countries. Though by May 6 the virus had infected 1,516 people in 22 countries--including 642 in the U.S., where two people have died from it--and the world was still officially on the brink...
...killing some 150, infecting hundreds more, and generating images of masked citizens and grim officials enumerating the latest toll. By April 29, the virus had spread to at least nine countries, leading health officials to raise the alert level and warn that a pandemic is imminent; the most recent influenza pandemic, in 1968, killed around a million people...
...will be very hard to tell what will happen in the next flu season, especially if a worse case of influenza does develop. One panic is expensive, but a second is a waste of money. Experts maintain that the difference of a few days could be the critical issue in the containment of influenza. If the public becomes complacent that the next epidemic will be mild and resists public health advice, then the economy really will face a disaster when a virulent influenza appears and spreads widely...
...folks at Google think that's too long. Google Flu Trends claims it can pick up signs of health troubles up to two weeks ahead of official health reports, giving communities precious time to protect themselves and hopefully contain the spread of an infectious disease like influenza. Another surveillance company, Veratect, based in Kirkland, Wash., says it picked up the first signs of H1N1 in La Gloria, in Veracruz state, Mexico, as early as April 6, when it received reports of a "strange" respiratory illness there - some 18 days before the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services...
...while systems like Google Flu Trends may be useful, health officials need to remember that the service tracks searches, not confirmed cases of illness or even symptoms that are severe enough to bring a person to the emergency room. Earlier this flu season, for example, when reports of avian influenza overseas hit the news in the U.S., there was a spike in bird flu queries online in New York City. "The system only tells you what people are interested in reading or learning about," he says...