The Next Outbreak

Yesterday, one of the topic my friends and I had was about this certain girl (I wouldn't call her my friend ~hehe!) was on her way to San Francisco for a vacation and it opened a topic about safety measures she should do for swine flu.

GIRL 1: Huy ingat ka sa swine flu doon ha?
GIRL 2: Ano ba malayo kami dun.
GIRL 1: Haler, ang lapit kaya ng California sa Mexico. (My golly!)
GIRL 2: Sabi ng malayo kami dun. Sa SanFran ang punta namin (Hala!) Besides, di naman kami kakain ng baboy dun! (Nakupo!)

I kept on laughing while listening to my friend's story, BUT....
I am actually confused what SIV (Swine Influenza Virus) really means and how it all started.

But I am not that stupid just like the 2nd girl mentioned above. All I know that it's airborne and it is becoming a pandemic nowadays.

So to feed my mind, I researched about it and learned why it has becoming to be one of the global threats that we are experiencing now.

From what I have gathered,
... It was discovered as early as 1976 when a man from a military was diagnosed and eventually caused death.
... Swine flu outbreak started somewhere in Mexico during the 2008-2009 flu season.
... Swine flu is one of the many types of type A influenza virus, a respiratory disease found on pigs
... As of early records (2005), people who caught this type of influenza are the hog-raisers, and the people who have a first hand contact with pigs. There were 12 cases in the U.S. but none of those died.

Why WHO (World Health Organization) is so concerned about this outbreak is that they have recently discovered that its DNA mutated a new strain of virus. If this type of flu originally came from infected animal to human, now it has come to the point of getting an infection through human to human transmission.

In just a blink of an eye, scenes from the movie OUTBREAK came to my mind. (Remember EBOLA virus?)

Scary.

Now it is spreading rapidly across North America. From Mexico, the hardest hit area to Texas, California, New York, going to Europe and even Asia, no questions about why we should be doubly aware of what is around us.

To understand more of it, here are the signs and symptoms that one (or you) could have swine flu (Let's hope not.)

• Throat is starting to get sore.
• You feel like your coming down on a cold, cough, or flu.
• Diarrhea
• Dizziness, nausea, vomiting
• Loss of appetite
• Nasal congestion
• Or, if you have asthma, you feel like you'll get one without feeling feverish.

Also, according to medical records, most people who are infected are the ones with respiratory problems (I'm still looking for an explanation on this but I still haven't come up with one yet. Probably because swine flu is actually a respiratory illness for pigs).

This is the real deal.

There are no human vaccine for this illness so if ever you suspect that you or someone you know have one, either you go to the nearest medical center, have yourself checked and drink Tamiflu or prepare yourself to die heartlessly.

Of course, we would not let that happen right? So here are the things that we could do:

• Wash your hands thoroughly. You'll never know that even a smallest thing that you touch is already infected.
• Avoid public areas.
• If you cough, use a tissue and throw it immediately and disinfect.
• Stay home if you are sick. And isolate yourself.
  
• If you have any respiratory problems, wear a mask when you go out.

It's better to be prepared. Personally, I don't want this outbreak to ever reach in the Philippines.