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Those are just a few of the questions still surrounding the H1N1 outbreak. Here are five more that need answers...
...mask gap stands in stark contrast to what other nations have on hand: the U.S. has one mask for every three Americans (masks are not supposed to be shared), while Australia has 2.5 masks per resident and Great Britain boasts six. "With the recent outbreak of the novel H1N1 influenza virus," warned Representative Kay Granger, a Texas Republican, "it has become clear that we need to purchase more medical supplies and replenish the Strategic National Stockpile." (Read "How to Prepare for a Pandemic...
...course, the more basic question is, How much do masks really help to stem the spread of disease? It's unclear, according to the CDC, which isn't recommending that people wear masks amid the current H1N1 outbreak. The CDC website says that "very little is known about the benefits" of wearing masks during a pandemic, and that the best preventive steps are frequent hand-washing and covering one's mouth when coughing or sneezing. Along with these strategies, the most effective techniques for preventing contagion are so-called social-distancing measures, such as closing schools, churches, theaters and other...
...globalization has its liabilities, it is also a strength because it gives us the tools to create a truly international disease-surveillance system. And the threat of a pandemic should remind us that we must fill the gaps in the creaky U.S. health-care system; during an infectious-disease outbreak, everyone will be at risk. "We live in one world, with one health," says Dr. Juan Lubroth, a senior officer at the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization...
...elsewhere, lingering beneath the radar of health monitors. Government officials are still unsure of how the virus reached Osaka and Hyogo, or how long it has been circulating in the region's highly populated urban centers of Osaka and Kobe. In addition to schools, movie theaters in the outbreak-hit prefectures were advised to close today, and Tokyo has blocked its own educational institutions from visiting the areas on field trips. "We must be prepared for a further expansion [of the virus]," says Toru Hashimoto, Osaka's governor...