Archive for May, 2009
As the name suggests, Swine Flu is a disease related to pigs, which has lately proved harmful to humans, too. This
is a type of influenza that victimizes pigs and almost 1% to 4% of pigs with Swine flu die with the disease. This is widely spreading all around the globe and has gone to almost 40 countries, especially in United States, Mexico, South America, Canada, Japan, Spain and UK.
What is Swine Flu?
It is a contagious disease, called Swine Influenza, also known as Swine Flu, hog flu and pig flu. It is caused by Influenza type A virus subtype H1N1. It is said to be a mutation of four identified strains of Influenza type A virus subtype H1N1. Thus, humans have no immunity against this new virus.
Mode of Transmission:
There are basically two modes of transmission of swine flu to humans: Read the rest of this entry
What was the ground zero for the swine flu outbreak, it has not been identified yet and none knows when and where
this new influenza strain transferred from swine and started to spread in humans.
Most of researchers and scientists seemed to return towards La Gloria, a place where first case of swine flu was found. The scientists seem quite hopeful that they will definitely succeed to find out where the epidemic first began. They are taking fresh blood samples from pigs and villagers and also testing antibodies to find out about the ground zero of the disease.
According to some other experts, one needs not to worry about whatever happened in the Mexican town, as the infection has spread all around the globe. However, some other experts believe that this investigation will prove quite effective to prevent the spread of the disease in future. Read the rest of this entry
The results of a new study show that changes in the design of cigarette with the passage of time can raise the risk for certain types of lung cancer particularly in the US smokers.
Dr. David Burns, the lead author of the study, says in a tobacco research meeting that nearly 51% cases of lung cancer are because of these changes.
It’s not happening for the first time that researchers have presented such results as many other previous studies have shown similar sort of results regarding different types of cigarettes that also include low-tar cigarettes. The interesting finding was that US as well as Australia both have switched to well-known milder cigarettes, but the risk of adenocarcinoma, a lung tumor was found higher in the US smokers than the Australian.
It wasn’t so in Mexico despite all the brunt of the infection, but in China only few cases of swine flu have come into
light so far and mask-wearing Chinese can be seen everywhere to avoid other making contact with the current victim of the disease.
The current surge of the disease seems quite weak, but due to the hovering fears Governments of different countries look quite skittish about the spread of the disease and to contain it. The Japanese national women soccer team had to cancel their North America tour, as a large number of swine flu cases have emerged in this part of the world.
A large number of people, those had come in contact with infected plane and train travel from the US and Canada, were quarantined in different hospitals, hotels and homes and according to a report from the US Embassy most of the people that were quarantined were American citizens. Read the rest of this entry
Carrying nearly 140 quarantined Mexican citizens have arrived Mexico yesterday on a chartered jet. These Mexican
citizens didn’t have any swine flu symptoms, but still the Chinese government officials quarantined them and ask them to leave the country.
The Mexican Govt. officials and first lady Margarita Zavala received these passengers at Mexico City international airport. The exact number of these passengers wasn’t confirmed by the officials, but they were about 140.
This quarantine has been criticized as discriminatory and unfair by the Mexican Govt. Those 71 Mexicans citizens that were held at hotels and hospitals in China, none of them was found with any symptom of swine flu.
