This won't be much of a diary, there will be no breaking news here, no inspirational photo slide shows...
Just a few paragraphs of information designed to put things in to perspective and I hope give kossacks a handle on the swine flu thing.
I've broken this down in to short simple 'lessons' to make it easier to digest, lessons 1-3 are very doom and gloom, but don't reach for the suicide pills till you've got to the end... because those are just explaining the worst case scenario. Lessons 4 onwards will present the probably more realistic picture.
and so I humbly request five minutes of your time, to read the info I'm presenting here, to absorb it and keep it in mind next time you find yourself getting annoyed at the 'media hysteria' about swine flu, or conversely, preparing for the oncoming manbirdpig* disease apocolypse.
----------Lesson one-------
SWINE FLU IS NOT NORMAL FLU
The clue is in the name, this is a newly emerged Zoonosis http://en.wikipedia.org/... a disease which has only very recently passed from animals to humans. This means that our immune systems have had no chance to prepare the defensive measures which protect the majority of us from normal flu.
Our bodies' natural defensive measures work like this to protect us against a normal flu virus;
The virus wears a coat of proteins which protects the genetic material with which the virus hijacks cells in order to reproduce, your antibodies recognise this coat of proteins and thereby 'know' that this virus is an unwelcome guest and attack it.
There is much more detailed info here http://arstechnica.com/...
Because this is a new virus, our antibodies may not recognise it, and it may wreak havoc before it's recognised as a foreign invader.
--------Lesson two --------
THIS IS A H1N1, AND LIKE THE 1918 SPANISH CHICKEN FLU PANDEMIC, ALSO H1N1 HAS THE POTENTIAL TO BE TERRIFYING.
You've probably heard this being called a H1N1, understand what those letters and numbers mean and you'll understand a great deal of why this is being perceived as such a potential threat.
Okay, you remember the protein coat from the last lesson? Right, good.
Well the main proteins of this coat are hemagglutinin and neuraminidase - or 'H and N' for short. The 1s specify the class or type of this protein which is present. so H1 is slightly different from H2 or H3.
The crucial characteristic of the last H1N1 pandemic, spanish/chicken flu was that rather than failing to respond to it, human immune systems over reacted to it.
The increased fatalities weren't caused by the direct action of the virus, but by a disproportionate immune response which proved fatal.
---------lesson three-----------
YOUNG HEALTHY PEOPLE WOULD BE AT THE MOST RISK IF THIS IS A REPEAT OF THE 1918 PANDEMIC
The 1918 pandemic killed more Italians than were killed as a direct result of the first world war. It killed Europeans and Americans in the tens of thousands, not to mention world wide deaths and the world population was much smaller then.
The statistics of a flu pandemic are very frightening; in a normal flu season 5-20 percent of the US population will be infected, and less than a half of one percent of those will die. Most of them with compromised immune systems; the under 6, the over 60, the malnourished and the already ill.
In a flu pandemic the infection rate remains in the equivalent 5-20% range, but the virulence is multiplied so that 5-10% of those infected die.
That means that deaths rise from tens of thousands in the US to hundreds of thousands, if not millions.
The reason for this increased virulence is that H1N1 viruses are like monty python's gangs of old ladies
http://www.youtube.com/...
( okay okay, so I snuck a comedy video in to my sensible science dairy - I couldn't resist!)
They attack fit young men (and women) because those with a healthy immune system are those who are liable to be killed by that immune system when it finds H1N1 and goes haywire.
A disease which predominately kills healthy people of working age is devastating to a society, because it leaves behind the very young, very old and the infirm. If you need a reminder of why that'd be a bad thing read up on the effects of AIDS in Africa.
-----Lesson four-----
DON'T PANIC
Not yet at least! Okay, so the previous lessons make this swine flu thing sound quite scary right? Well, that's because what I've discussed thus far is the WORST CASE SCENARIO.
Much of the confusion and debate around swine flu, apart from the question of its origins, is centred around conflicting estimates of how virulent it's likely to be, and the answer is...
We just don't know.
The margin of error for predicting epidemic and pandemic deaths is HUGE because we can't predict how quickly a new virus will mutate, how easily it will spread from person to person, whether it will develop resistance to anti-virals, whether our immune systems will adapt rapidly to it... etc. Put simply there are two many unknown variables for anything but the most hazy of guesses.
This is why WHO (the world health organization) and national governments world wide are preparing for the worst case scenario, because it is far better to be safe than sorry, far better to over prepare now than to allow complacency to stifle proper public health measures which could prevent a pandemic.
SARS is an excellent case in point, there's a good chance the reason that the media hysteria about a pandemic looks like a huge over reaction in hindsight is BECAUSE of the response of WHO and national governments in mobilising to monitor cases, isolate them and get people in affected areas to take preventative measures.
-----Lesson five-------
REASONS TO BE HOPEFUL
They say the past is a different country, and it's good to bear that in mind when considering the 1918 flu pandemic. War had ravaged the west, poverty meant a lack of sufficient health care and nutrition for millions. Little was known about the nature of viruses or why vaccines worked. The flu pandemic probably claimed many victims that it would not claim today.
So far anti-virals like tamiflu seem to be effective, projects to monitor cases of contagious diseases and allow for an early warning system have helped alert us to the threat and have prompted governments to mobilize to acquire stocks of vaccines and face masks. Mass media will allow health officials to explain to the general public the best way to prevent the spread of infection and how to recognise symptoms.
We're a LOT better armed against this thing, even if it IS the worst case scenario than we were against previous epidemics.
------Lesson six-------
SPARE A THOUGHT FOR YOUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN THE THIRD WORLD
This swine flu story is in all our newspapers, in our internetz, on our television and radio programmes because it threatens us in the west.
It's likely that our highly developed health infrastructure will protect us. Even those who live in poverty in the US and lack health insurance are likely to be diagnosed and treated once the middle class recognise that having infected people around is a direct threat to them.
Those in the third world, in countries where decent health care is a luxury of a minority, where war and poverty have weakened the population already, they may well be the ones who suffer most from this new disease.
And what then?
Like the African AIDS epidemic and malaria it will be relegated to the foreign news sections of newspapers, and to charity adverts beseeching us to donate money to help those unfortunate souls not born in to the wealth and security of the west.
And we will wring our hands, and say it's terrible, just terrible. But be VERY VERY VERY glad it's not us at risk of dying from this new disease.
---Lesson seven----
There is a best case scenario.
We know swine flu passes from animals to humans, we know it passes from human to human and we know it kills a high proportion of those infected.
So the best case scenario is still pretty grim, but it's a heck of a lot better than the worst case scenario.
The best case scenario is that it proves minimally contagious, does not develop resistance to anti-virals and our bodies adapt to it.
In this scenario there is a marked increase in flu deaths for a year, maybe two, maybe three, then a levelling off to normal levels.
------Final lesson-----
No one knows yet how bad it will be or what will happen, don't let the panic stop you from living your normal life now, unless you're likely to come in to contact with an infected person, in which case take all the preventative measures you can.
Read up on the symptoms, read up on how to prevent the spread of the disease (wash your hands often in hot soapy water, avoid touching your face with unwashed hands, throw used tissues in the trash) and then carry on with life.
useful links
wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
bbc http://news.bbc.co.uk/...
*manbirdpig is a quote from reddit www.reddit.com inspired by southpark's 'manbearpig' of course, and referring to the mixture of avian, human and pig influenza viruses that apparently make up this new strain. Some have claimed foul play due to this combination , I don't feel at all qualified to comment on that score, but my instincts, as for now, are with the natural mutation hypothesis.
************* end note**********
I have chosen not to deal with the origin of the disease here, others have written diaries today about a suspected link to smithfield factory farms, so please look those up for more info.