Pandemic Flu

Bush Outlines $7.1B Flu-Fighting Strategy - Yahoo! News

Bush Outlines $7.1B Flu-Fighting Strategy - Yahoo! News: "President Bush outlined a $7.1 billion strategy Tuesday to prepare for the danger of a pandemic influenza outbreak, saying he wanted to stockpile enough vaccine to protect 20 million Americans against the current strain of bird flu. "

posted by Kevin C. @ 11:33 AM 0 comments

Influenza pandemics are recurring events.

An influenza pandemic is a rare but recurrent event. Three pandemics occurred in the previous century: “Spanish influenza” in 1918, “Asian influenza” in 1957, and “Hong Kong influenza” in 1968. The 1918 pandemic killed an estimated 40–50 million people worldwide. That pandemic, which was exceptional, is considered one of the deadliest disease events in human history. Subsequent pandemics were much milder, with an estimated 2 million deaths in 1957 and 1 million deaths in 1968.

A pandemic occurs when a new influenza virus emerges and starts spreading as easily as normal influenza – by coughing and sneezing. Because the virus is new, the human immune system will have no pre-existing immunity. This makes it likely that people who contract pandemic influenza will experience more serious disease than that caused by normal influenza.

posted by Kevin C. @ 11:05 AM 0 comments

Pandemic Flu? Are You Serious?

Concern for a potential pandemic flu outbreak is well-founded. While not "imminent", it does pay to be prepared. President Bush just gave a great speech outlining why we should be concerned, and what the government intends to do about it. The official government site for pandemic flu is
http://www.pandemicflu.gov.

Pandemic flu, avian flu, bird flu, or whatever you want to call is something we should be concerned with. I recommend you check out the government site I posted earlier, and come back here regularly for updates on this situation.

posted by Kevin C. @ 10:38 AM 0 comments