Word: mild
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...more frequent and more deadly, but governments won't be able to tackle them effectively if they keep pouring money into firefighting rather than tackling the root causes. "Every year it's the same problem," he says. "We're just crossing our fingers and hoping the weather will be mild, rather than actually planning [ahead]. We have been implementing a fire-extinction strategy. We should be implementing a fire-prevention strategy...
...clever about managing the doses they receive, for instance by immunizing front-line health workers, says Richard Coker of the Communicable Diseases Policy Research Group at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Even so, he says, most developing countries will struggle to cope with even a mild pandemic. Indian doctors in Pune were overwhelmed earlier this month when, days after India reported its first fatality in the pandemic, thousands of people mobbed public hospitals in the hope of being tested. "We've looked at the pandemic preparedness plans in developing countries and we've found that almost across...
...Right now this pandemic would appear to be a mild one," says the center's director, Alan Hay, 65. "But influenza viruses can change quite suddenly. And there's no reason another, more dangerous virus couldn't emerge with pandemic potential. It's crucial that we keep our eye on the ball...
According to WHO figures, the H1N1 virus has so far proved to be mild, causing only 1,200 deaths among 160,000 confirmed cases. Hay says his team is watching for several changes in the virus' genome that could make the pandemic more severe. The first involves the H1N1 vaccine that is currently in production. The batch is based on a recipe that Hay's team helped put together in April. As it takes six months to produce a vaccine, virologists must be on the lookout for "antigenic drift" - changes in the virus that would let it escape the immune...
Still, so far H1N1/09 hasn't proved a serious killer. But as the U.S. prepares for an uptick in infections this fall, even a mild pandemic could overload a clogged health-care system. And there's no guarantee the virus won't get worse--the Spanish flu was relatively light in the spring of 1918, only to turn lethal that autumn. U.S. health officials said on July 29 that they hope to have 120 million doses of a new H1N1/09 vaccine ready by October, but the virus could change by then, or the vaccine might prove less than effective. Virologists...