Word: swine
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...That depends on whom you ask. Officials at the CDC and the WHO have emphasized that while the swine flu situation is serious, they're responding with an abundance of precautions. Even Osterholm, who has been highly critical of the U.S. government's long-term failures to better prepare for a pandemic, gives the CDC a 9 out of 10 for its response so far. Outside of Mexico, the swine flu hasn't looked too serious yet - unlike during the SARS outbreaks of 2003, when an entirely new virus with no obvious treatment took the world by surprise...
...truth is that every outbreak is unpredictable, and there's a lot we don't know yet about the new swine flu. There hasn't been a flu pandemic for more than a generation, and there hasn't been a truly virulent pandemic since long before the arrival of mass air transit. We're in terra incognito here. Panic would be counterproductive - especially if it results in knee-jerk reactions like closing international borders, which would only complicate the public-health response. But neither should we downplay our very real vulnerabilities. As Napolitano put it: "This will be a marathon...
...same Hong Kong scientists who followed SARS from the moment it emerged as a mystery disease until they had identified its cause warned on Monday that swine flu 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...
...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...
...they are on high alert. Two of the three people with respiratory ailments, a 77-year-old woman and her 4-year-old granddaughter, tested negative for H1N1. The third, a 27-year-old woman who had been to San Francisco, tested positive for a human influenza subtype, not swine flu. Rated "serious" on the government's influenza-alert scale, swine flu was named a notifiable disease on Monday, which means doctors are required by law to report any suspected cases...