Swine flu infects region

May 22, 2009 • written by Amber Batsch, 08-09 Co-Editor-in-Chief  
Filed under News

        “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” This is the motto people say to avoid visits to the doctor, but now not only do people have to constantly eat apples, they also have to wash their hands to keep the doctor at bay. Doctors are urging citizens to practice common cold prevention even more than before with the recent swine flu, or H1N1 influenza outbreak.

        Although the H1N1 flu was originally thought to have been a much more serious pandemic, it so far has not been as bad as originally predicted, according to Dr. Jon R. Rice, Senior Vice President and Chief Med Officer for Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota.

        “The initial fear about the potential severity of this flu has lessened considerably,” Rice said. “This pandemic event (at this time) is turning out to be not much more than an average flu that happens to have components of bird and swine flu and be coming at an unusual time.”

         He went on to explain that the H1N1 influenza is now being called a “novel influenza A” because of its genetic makeup.

        “The new virus has genes from North American swine and avian influenza, human influenza, and swine influenza normally found in Asia and Europe,” said Nancy Cox, chief of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Influenza Division.

        When looking at the changes in this flu from the seasonal flu that people are used to, he added that the symptoms for H1N1 flu are “very non-specific.”

        “They include fever, runny nose, cough and occasionally vomiting or diarrhea,” Rice said. “These may be in any combination and sometimes are accompanied by generalized aches.”

        Even though flu cases have been relatively mild, in most cases, there are a couple of ways the flu is being spread.

        “Flu is passed on from person to person through droplets from coughing and sneezing,” Rice said. “The droplets may be on hands and be transferred from hand to hand. Therefore the importance of good hand washing.”

        Although the H1N1 flu can be spread from person to person, people cannot catch this virus by eating pork, according to CDC.

        With the fears of a worldwide pandemic hitting, West Fargo High School Foreign Language teachers Michelle Highman, Suzanne Thibert and Jessica Raile were worried about what this would mean for this summer’s trip to Germany and France. Fortunately, both groups have been informed their trips are still going as planned.

        As of now, the World Health Organization (WHO) is not recommending travel restrictions, but is advising people who are sick to delay travel until they are have recovered. Even without these travel restrictions, there are currently 33 countries that have laboratory confirmed cases, according to the WHO website. Including 5728 cases around the world and 61 deaths as of May 13, these statistics can be found on the WHO website and are changing on a daily basis.

        CDC states that on average they receive one case of human swine influenza every one or two years, but in the time span of a little over two years, they have confirmed 12 cases of the human influenza.

        Currently, the pandemic status is at a level five out of a six level spectrum. Which, according to WHO’s definition, means “the virus has caused sustained community-level outbreaks in at least two countries in one WHO region. At phase five a pandemic is considered imminent.”

        When looking at this, Rice explains that “WHO does not include is the severity of the flu virus.” He added that if there was a severity scale to rate how severe the H1N1 flu is at this time, on a scale from 1-10 he would rate it at a two, but what has everyone worried is that that severity could up to higher number later on.

        “Part of the fear is that this may change to an eight or nine and make people much more ill,” Rice said. “This is something that we might see in the fall.”