Sunday, April 26, 2009

Protecting Your Family From an Influenza Pandemic

Protecting Your Family From an Influenza Pandemic

"The emerging threat of the Asian Avian Flu Virus (AAV H5N1) brings into sharp focus the vulnerability of modern, highly mobile and technological societies to viral or bacterial infectious diseases. The last major Asian flu outbreak, (H2N2 in 1957, which killed 69,800 people in the United States) took five months to reach the United States. With the advent of global jet travel, it is now likely that highly virulent disease strains will be transmitted to population centers around the world in a matter of just a few days."

We have seen the spread of this flu from Mexico City to Canada to New York to New Zealand to Israel in just a few days. It's out there. One iteration of the virus seems more mild, those in NYC and New Zealand are comfortably recovering. The Canadian who returned from Mexico was in hospital for 11 days, and the Mexicans are now suffering with a virulent iteration that kills.

* This new strain of influenza has shown it can spread easily from person to person.

* It has been found in several places and among people who had no known contact. This suggests there is an unseen chain of infection and that the virus has been spreading quietly.

* This can happen because respiratory illnesses are very common and doctors rarely test patients for flu. People could have had the swine virus and never known it.

* At least in the United States, it has so far only been found in people who had mild illness, another factor that would have allowed it to spread undetected.

* World Health Organization director Dr. Margaret Chan has said the new strain of H1N1 has the potential to become a pandemic strain because it does spread easily and does cause serious disease.

From the article

A.) Raise Your Immune Resistance
B.) Be Ready to Fight the Illness
C.) Avoid Exposure.
D.) Stockpile Key Logistics.
E.) Be Prepared to Dispense Charity From a Safe Distance

Read more at the link. The most important things are to cover your mouth when you cough and to instruct kids to cover their mouths. Coughs are weapons. Also, frequent hand-washing is a must, with warm water and anti-bacterial soap or alcohol hand sanitizer. Reducing or eliminating attendance at large-scale events is also a strongly recommended preventative.

Anyway, that is some information or you and I highly recommend reading the article!

1 comment:

~Mrs Sandy~ said...

I was just reading about this earlier. Thanks for the info. BTW I' from GA too!