Word: spreads
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...That would leave the WHO and individual countries to fall back on damage control, using antivirals and old-fashioned infection control - like closing schools, limiting public gatherings and even restricting travel - to slow the spread of the virus. But such efforts would likely inflict serious damage on an already faltering global economy - and the truth is, we don't know how well those methods will work...
...same time, the very nature of globalization puts us at greater risk. International air travel means that infections can spread very quickly. And while the WHO can prepare a new swine flu vaccine strain in fairly short order, we still use a laborious, decades-old process to manufacture vaccines, meaning it would take months before the pharmaceutical industry could produce its full capacity of doses - and even then, there wouldn't be enough for everyone on the planet. The U.S. could be particularly vulnerable; only one plant, in Stillwater, Penn., makes flu vaccine in America. In a pandemic, that could...
...poses an even greater challenge. While scientists have studied influenza for many years, the nature of the disease makes it a tough enemy to combat. With Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, patients developed symptoms around the same time they became contagious. But with the flu, a person can spread the infection days before they feel sick enough to go to a doctor. "The flu is a known devil," says Malik Peiris, one of the scientists at Hong Kong University who helped trace the 2003 outbreak of SARS to the civet cat. "This is a different ballgame...
...wonder that Hong Kong has taken some of the toughest measures of any country in the effort to prevent and control the spread of the H1N1 Influenza A swine flu, which has killed more than 100 people in Mexico and infected several in the U.S., Canada and Spain, with suspected cases in Israel and New Zealand. Surgical masks, quarantines and empty streets are all too familiar for the city's 7 million residents, who saw their normally bustling lives screech to a halt six years ago, when SARS killed nearly 300 people. (See pictures of the swine flu outbreak...
...speedy reaction from a government that was criticized for not doing enough to curb the spread of SARS, which led to the resignation of the acting health chief, Yeoh Eng-kiong. "While we tragically suffered the 2003 SARS outbreak, it gave us a lot of valuable insight and practical experience in managing a large-scale outbreak," said Gabriel Matthew Leung, Undersecretary for Food and Health, at a news conference in Hong Kong on Monday afternoon. "It certainly prepared us very well for what may come...