Word: viruses
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...antivirals work? If administered soon after symptoms appear, antivirals Oseltamivir and Zanamivir (brand names Tamiflu and Relenza) are believed to reduce the severity and shorten the duration of the disease by current strain of swine flu. The drugs work by inhibiting an enyzme chemical helper that the flu virus uses to spread from infected human cells to healthy ones. So while not killing the virus, it helps the body fight off the disease by slowing its spread. This, in turn, may help prevent "acute respiratory distress syndrome" - the sudden worsening of flu that, along with secondary lung infections...
...pandemic? The most effective way of slowing a pandemic is to develop a vaccine. But doing so can take months. In the interim, antivirals may play a vital roll by making ill patients less contagious. When a person is sick with the flu, he or she "sheds" virus through coughing, sneezing and other excretions. Effective antivirals lessen the amount of virus a patient sheds (because the patient is not as severely ill) and shortens the length of time he or she sheds virus at all. Taking this into account, Neil Ferguson of Imperial College in London has used mathematical modeling...
...swine flu become resistant to these drugs? Yes, and that's another reason why health officials will want to limit their use to those who have become ill with the disease, according to Hugh Pennington, a virologist at the University of Aberdeen. Resistance occurs when a virus mutates in such a way as to render a drug ineffective. This is more likely to occur when an antiviral is widely used because resistant mutations are more likely to thrive and be passed on. A similar process has led to the widespread existence of antibiotic resistant bacteria such as MRSA...
...Gloria outbreak may also give clues about the origins of the virus. The community is a few miles from an industrial pig farm Granjas Carroll de Mexico, which is 50% owned by Virginia-based Smithfield Foods, Inc. Residents have complained for several years about effluent - composed of animal waste and porcine feces - dumped by the farm and accuse it of making them fall sick. However, government agricultural experts joined the company in saying they have found no traces of swine flu in its hundreds of workers or thousands of hogs and piglets...
Whatever the origins, the virus is putting increasing pressure on the capital city. After his Tuesday announcements about restaurants, Ebrard said that if the number of sick rises drastically, he will consider still harder methods such as shutting down the subway system - a move that would really send shockwaves through the economic backbone of the capital. "We need to work together and be responsible," the mayor said. "We are going to defeat this challenge as we have done with all the other difficulties that our city has faced...