The elephant, er pig, in the room.....

Ok I had to do a crash study of flu viruses, given what we are hearing on the media since the weekend. I had actually been following this since the information broke last Thursday, on a really solid website:

www.flutrakers.com

I had bookmarked that a while back due to odd little virus outbreak right here in Alaska, and am happy to tell you all, it has solid information throughout. There is a section for Swine Flu by itself, plus sections on the CDC, Avian Flu, and other flu's around. In addition there is a marvelous resource section which covers everything from basic hygiene to how to deal with a flu stricken person at home. It also has recommendations for basic home preps should there be a severe outbreak-which is what is happening.

Then this morning I ran across this video-which was posted to flutrackers:

http://www.wpxi.com/video/19313969/index.html

Watch it, then watch it again. The speaker is Dr. Henry Niman Phd, and contributing member to flutrackers (which is funded by Doctors Without Borders). As soon as I posted it to several private boards, adding that I expected the WHO to elevate the Alert level to six within a few days, it came up as bumped to alert level 5 on Drudge just a few minutes ago.

Here are some salient facts:

It is going to get much worse, very fast. The virus has changed to sustained human-to-human transmission.

This is essentially the same virus as the 1918 Spanish Flu which killed millions-most of them were healthy adults between 20 and 45.

The very young and the aged have more moderate immune responses and this actually helps them-too robust an immune response and you can die from that response-instead of the disease itself.

You cannot get Swine Flu from eating pork (or any other meats, actually) but you can get it in numerous ways.

The virus can stay viable on some surfaces for 48 hours.

Viruses don't like humidity, so they expect to see cases taper off as the Northern Hemisphere moves on into summer....with a rapid increase in the Southern Hemisphere. They also expect to see a huge surge in cases this fall, if the virus follows the same pattern as the 1918 pandemic.

The big fear is whether or not this virus mutates and begins to pick up elements of other flus. The most likely one does not respond well to the common drugs, such as Tamiflu. Currently, the H1N1 (swine flu) is suseptible to Tamiflu and Relenza. If they combine, then the only effective drug may be Relenza.

It could take six months to produce an effective vaccine for this, and that effectiveness may be mitigated by mutations yet to come.

I am sure I could type a whole bunch more about this, and will over the months to come. I expect to have our schools closed within the month, since we have so much international travel here in Alaska.