Deadly New Flu Outbreak

Reuters is reporting the outbreak of a new strain of "swine" flu described as a "never-before-seen mixture of viruses typical among pigs, birds and humans."

April 24, 2009:

GENEVA (Reuters) – The World Health Organization (WHO) voiced concern on Friday at a confirmed outbreak of swine flu in the United States and what it called more than 800 human "influenza-like" cases in Mexico, including about 60 deaths.

The United Nations agency said it had activated its Strategic Health Operations Center (SHOC) -- its command and control center for acute public health events -- but could not say whether it was considering issuing a travel advisory.

Mexican Health Minister Jose Angel Cordoba said that it was cancelling classes for millions of children in the heart of the country on Friday after influenza killed around 20 people in recent weeks. Mexico's flu season had extended for longer this year.

April 24, 2009:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Seven people have been diagnosed with a new kind of swine flu in California and Texas, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Thursday.

"Symptoms from those seriously ill in Mexico include high fever, headache, eye pain, shortness of breath and extreme fatigue with rapid progression of symptoms to severe respiratory distress in about five days," the British Columbia Center for Disease Control said in a statement.

In the United States, the CDC reported the new strain of swine flu on Tuesday in a boy and a girl from California's two southernmost counties.

Now, five more cases have been found via normal surveillance for seasonal influenza. None of the patients, whose symptoms closely resembled seasonal flu, had any direct contact with pigs.

Canadian officials have asked doctors to keep an eye out for cases of respiratory illness among travelers from Mexico.

What happens if this flu spreads to millions of people around the world? If the death rate in Mexico is any indication, a death rate of 60 people among the 800 cases would equate to 75,000 deaths for each one million people affected.

Consider the fact that millions of people in the U.S. and many hundreds of millions around the world get the flu each year!

And where could a "never-before-seen mixture of viruses typical among pigs, birds and humans" come from?

There are several possibilities...

AAR