Swine flu is worse in Mexico, but why?

PeteEU said:

First off then, we had a world war that was being fought in trenches. The flu hit the troops very hard due to the conditions and many historians and experts actually say that the Spanish flu had more to do with the German surrender than anything else. These troops were sent to the rear when sick, which spread the flu even more.

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World War I was mostly fought in Europe, yet the flu pandemic afflicted the entire world.

PeteEU said:

Secondly our understanding of the flu was no where near as good as it is today. Back then we did not know how it was spread for one.

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Yes we did. We just couldn't stop it. Likewise, it's unlikely that we would be able to contain a pandemic today...we aren't even able to contain the normal seasonal flu outbreaks.

PeteEU said:

Thirdly back then we did not have any medicine to combat flu. We do today.

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This is true. Tamiflu helps treat the symptoms, and there should be a vaccine within a few months. However, it may not be soon enough to contain it, and even with those things there could still be a lot of fatalities from a bona fide pandemic.

PeteEU said:

And finally, sanitation back then was no where near as good as it is today. Most houses did not have indoor plumbing and such back then.

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Plumbing is not really a big factor in whether or not the flu spreads. Granted, we have hand soap nowadays...but most people don't use it as much as they should anyway. Additionally, we have a lot more people working in closed office spaces today where they can catch it from one another.

PeteEU said:

There are more differences of course, but those are the key differences that will probably mean that this new swine flu will be no where near as bad as the Spanish flu of 1918.

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I think this is a false comfort. The main reason that we haven't yet seen an outbreak as bad as the 1918 pandemic is that we have just been lucky.

Kandahar said:

World War I was mostly fought in Europe, yet the flu pandemic afflicted the entire world.

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And? Having millions of men in dirty wet ditches filled with rats dont help the situation does it now? And when those sick men are sent to the rear of the line, among population centres, then it does not help either does it now? When US troops or just normal people get on big steamliners and travel to the US, and get sick, that does not help either does it?

Yes we did. We just couldn't stop it. Likewise, it's unlikely that we would be able to contain a pandemic today...we aren't even able to contain the normal seasonal flu outbreaks.

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No we did not understand flu then especially compared to today.

This is true. Tamiflu helps treat the symptoms, and there should be a vaccine within a few months. However, it may not be soon enough to contain it, and even with those things there could still be a lot of fatalities from a bona fide pandemic.

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Containment is near impossible. Lessening the spread is our only option. Travel bans, prevention, quarantine and so on is the only way.

Plumbing is not really a big factor in whether or not the flu spreads. Granted, we have hand soap nowadays...but most people don't use it as much as they should anyway. Additionally, we have a lot more people working in closed office spaces today where they can catch it from one another.

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Of course it does. People have to go to the bathroom. If you have to share it with 40+ other people, in insanitary conditions, then yes it does matter. Touching the damn toilet door can get you infected for example. In fact the most common form of transmission is from door nobs, ATM machines and such, because people sneeze or cough into their hands but dont wash them right after.. or touch a surface, which then becomes a transplantation point for the next infected.

I think this is a false comfort. The main reason that we haven't yet seen an outbreak as bad as the 1918 pandemic is that we have just been lucky.

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But we have seen outbreaks almost every decade since WW2. They have not been as bad as the 1918 one yes, but several 10s of thousands have died and even up to two million estimated in the 1957 Asian flu pandemic.

American said:

Speak for yourself, ape.

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Homo Sapiens are apes. Get use to it.

You see what the Russians are doing. They're checking all American planes for swine flu, and banning imports of meat from Mexico and some US states.

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Which seems to be pretty standard these days. Basic precautions. The problem is, last we checked, we don't exactly know the gestation period.

Factors effecting the death rate in Mexico include poor sanitation, lower standards of health care generally than here, the pollution effects the immune system, and people wait till it's too late to go to the hospital. Also the closer you are to an outbreak the more virulent the stain. The facts so far do not indicate that this flu is any more deadly than we see every year when 35.000+ Americans and 250.000 people in the rest of the world die from the flu.
It also has nothing what ever to do with the way animals a raised. It is being reported this is not really the Swine flu because it is a mutation of the H1N1 and H5N1 or bird flu and a human variant. It has also been said by two doctors it can not happen in nature by it's self. Pigs systems are very close to ours and it's therefore easy for pathogens to make the jump to humans.
It's too early to be panicking people over it. Take steps to avoid contact with crowds wash your hands and look up other things you can do.

Arch Enemy said:

the death toll could be 10% of the world's population.
.

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Confine that to Washington DC and the flu may be beneficial to the US and the world in general.

PeteEU said:

And? Having millions of men in dirty wet ditches filled with rats dont help the situation does it now? And when those sick men are sent to the rear of the line, among population centres, then it does not help either does it now? When US troops or just normal people get on big steamliners and travel to the US, and get sick, that does not help either does it?

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Jeez, buy The Great Influenza and figure it out. Almost all of the people who died from that bug weren't in the trenches. The trenches served as the incubator of a disease that apparently first showed in Kansas.

PeteEU said:

No we did not understand flu then especially compared to today.

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We can't stop the spread of flu today.

Hell, we couldn't stop the spread of a disease that required direct and intimate exchanges of bodily fluid. Good luck "stopping" the spread of a cough and sneeze driven pandemic.

PeteEU said:

Containment is near impossible. Lessening the spread is our only option. Travel bans, prevention, quarantine and so on is the only way.

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Weren't you the one that bitched at me for demanding the US seal the border with Mexico?

No, you commented, but Kandahar made the obligatory leftist "You're a racist" remark. Never mind.

PeteEU said:

Of course it does. People have to go to the bathroom. If you have to share it with 40+ other people, in insanitary conditions, then yes it does matter. Touching the damn toilet door can get you infected for example. In fact the most common form of transmission is from door nobs, ATM machines and such, because people sneeze or cough into their hands but dont wash them right after.. or touch a surface, which then becomes a transplantation point for the next infected.

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I'm just going to have to stop licking doorknobs...

Especially those touched by illegal invaders in my country.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:

Weren't you the one that bitched at me for demanding the US seal the border with Mexico?

No, you commented, but Kandahar made the obligatory leftist "You're a racist" remark. Never mind.

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Sealing the border doesn't make the slightest bit of sense. The only reason you even brought it up was because you saw the word "Mexico" in the title of the thread and thought you could turn this into an excuse to bash immigrants.

Is there any evidence at all that Mexican immigrants are responsible for the spread of the swine flu from Mexico City to anywhere else in the world? Or are you suggesting that "sealing the border" entails quarantining all American citizens within our borders?

Kandahar said:

Sealing the border doesn't make the slightest bit of sense. The only reason you even brought it up was because you saw the word "Mexico" in the title of the thread and thought you could turn this into an excuse to bash immigrants.

Is there any evidence at all that Mexican immigrants are responsible for the spread of the swine flu from Mexico City to anywhere else in the world? Or are you suggesting that "sealing the border" entails quarantining all American citizens within our borders?

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The border ought to closed anyway.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:

Jeez, buy The Great Influenza and figure it out. Almost all of the people who died from that bug weren't in the trenches. The trenches served as the incubator of a disease that apparently first showed in Kansas.

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Never said that they were. All I stated was that the trenches of WW1 were a great place for the flu to spread fast and be devastating, which it was.

We can't stop the spread of flu today.

Hell, we couldn't stop the spread of a disease that required direct and intimate exchanges of bodily fluid. Good luck "stopping" the spread of a cough and sneeze driven pandemic.

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Never said we could.

Weren't you the one that bitched at me for demanding the US seal the border with Mexico?

No, you commented, but Kandahar made the obligatory leftist "You're a racist" remark. Never mind.

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Nope. In fact it might be a sensible thing to do, but I question how effective it would be. And there is a difference between saying they should close the boarder for medical reasons, than what you and others have stated... infected invaders, dirty people and whatnot. Your intent, as well as a few others, was very clear.. very anti illegal immigrant and very anti Mexican.

I'm just going to have to stop licking doorknobs...

Especially those touched by illegal invaders in my country.

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Where does it say "licking doorknobs"? You touch a doorknob, then later pick up a baggle without washing your hands, and congrats you are infected. And again you show your true colours.

Councilman said:

Factors effecting the death rate in Mexico include poor sanitation, lower standards of health care generally than here, the pollution effects the immune system, and people wait till it's too late to go to the hospital. Also the closer you are to an outbreak the more virulent the stain. The facts so far do not indicate that this flu is any more deadly than we see every year when 35.000+ Americans and 250.000 people in the rest of the world die from the flu.
It also has nothing what ever to do with the way animals a raised. It is being reported this is not really the Swine flu because it is a mutation of the H1N1 and H5N1 or bird flu and a human variant. It has also been said by two doctors it can not happen in nature by it's self. Pigs systems are very close to ours and it's therefore easy for pathogens to make the jump to humans.
It's too early to be panicking people over it. Take steps to avoid contact with crowds wash your hands and look up other things you can do.

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Regardless of your opinions of the quality of Mexican sanitation, the fact is this epidemic began in a US owned hog farm in Mexico. So it could have started in the Hamptons, if that's where the hog farm was. Would you have cast dispersions on the sanitary habits of Hamptons residents? I suspect not.

If swine flu started at a factory farm then it is likely that people closest to the epicenter of where it started will have a more virulent strain of the disease. If the flu is more deadly, kills more quickly, it doesn't last long in most environments as the host has a shorter opportunity to spread it around. In a factory farm situation where animals are kept literally nose to nose virulent strains can last longer spreading easily from one animal to the next animal and then on to nearby humans due to the ridiculously close quarters. However as it passes from human to human it's likely the strain will be less deadly the further away you get from ground zero. The folks who catch mild versions of the disease are the ones who are going to spread it the most. They are the ones who will be sick but not so sick they stay home and thus they will be out traveling around passing the contagious crapola around. Any humans who get a severe or more deadly form of the virus are sick in bed and don't spread the illness as much as their contact with others are limited. So it's inevitable that the milder forms of the illness spread the furthest away from the epicenter while the strongest forms are found there.

One thing that must be noted is that, although it is being called "swine flu", they have yet to isolate the virus in animals.

AFP: Debate rages over swine flu name

The World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) brought the debate to an official level on Monday, arguing that it was "not justified" to call it swine influenza because the virus had not been found in animals so far.

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There is thus far no evidence that this came from a factory farm.

The lack of a host animal combined with the unusual nature of the virus' genetic makeup actually supports the possibility of it actually being man-made.

One poster earlier said that influenza DNA cannot be manipulated, but this is inaccurate on multiple levels. First, influenza is an RNA virus. This makes it easier to manipulate.

Second, the method of creating a vaccine involves genetically engineering the virulent strain into a non-virulent version. Genetic manipulation of Influenza is not only possible, it is currently our best defense against it: Genetically engineered live attenuated influenza A virus vaccine candidates.

This does not mean that it was genetically engineered, it just means that at this point, we cannot conclusively say it was not engineered.

Just as we cannot conclusively say it came from a factory farm, or even swine at all.

The only things we do know for sure is that this is a very serious threat, regardless of it's origins, and we should not take it lightly.

This is true. While the farms are getting the closest scrutiny there does appear to be a puzzling lack of sickly infected pigs.

Tucker Case said:

There is thus far no evidence that this came from a factory farm.

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The first cases came from a region adjacent to a huge hog farm, and on April 6, the farm was investigated.

Is Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork packer and hog producer, linked to the outbreak? Smithfield operates massive hog-raising operations Perote, Mexico, in the state of Vera Cruz, where the outbreak originated. The operations, grouped under a Smithfield subsidiary called Granjas Carrol, raise 950,000 hogs per year, according to the company Web site—a level nearly equal to Smithfield’s total U.S. hog production.

According to the disease-tracking Biosurveillance blog:

Residents believed the outbreak had been caused by contamination from pig breeding farms located in the area. They believed that the farms, operated by Granjas Carroll, polluted the atmosphere and local water bodies, which in turn led to the disease outbreak. According to residents, the company denied responsibility for the outbreak and attributed the cases to "flu." However, a municipal health official stated that preliminary investigations indicated that the disease vector was a type of fly that reproduces in pig waste and that the outbreak was linked to the pig farms. It was unclear whether health officials had identified a suspected pathogen responsible for this outbreak.

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Biosurveillance: Swine Flu in Mexico- Timeline of Events

WillRockwell said:

The first cases came from a region adjacent to a huge hog farm, and on April 6, the farm was investigated.


Biosurveillance: Swine Flu in Mexico- Timeline of Events

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That appears to be dated, Will:

According to an Associated Press report yesterday, samples taken from 35 La Gloria residents who had flu recently were sent away for testing and only Edgar's came back positive for the new A/H1N1 strain at the centre of the global controversy. Edgar, who has never travelled outside of the Perote valley, and whose family has no contact with Mexico City, and don't keep or go near pigs in their everyday lives, was confirmed last week to be the first known case of the virus in Mexico. Edgar was sick over a month ago and is now fully recovered.

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Swine Flu Baffles Experts And Raises More Questions Than Answers

You'll see that the data doesn't confirm the blog's report. Although the first known case is form there, the other cases are showing up as a different strain.

Yeah the evidence seems to point to the factory pig farms. However as of yet there are no proven to be infected pig populations which is odd. Except, it isn't very clear yet what testing has or has not yet been conducted and the Mexican authorities aren't very forthcoming about what tests have been done exactly. When you say you have no infected pigs it would be nice to show, "Here's the testing that has been done, here's how many pig populations we ran studies on, etc."

The virus is certainly acting how you would expect a farm factory induced virus to act - with the most virulent and deadly strains of the virus residing closest to the center of it's suspected origins, the pigs.

A 23-month-old Mexican child has died of swine flu in Texas - the first death from the virus outside Mexico, where it may have killed as many as 159 people.

The child - one of 91 cases of swine flu in the US - had been visiting relatives in Texas when he fell ill.

The World Health Organization said the virus was still spreading, even though it was now from person to person.

And Spain says it has confirmed the first case of swine flu in a person who has not travelled to Mexico.
BBC News

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First death in the US reported today but still it's only Mexicans dying? Really strange patterns. Why is this virus active in the warmer months too?

talloulou said:

Yeah the evidence seems to point to the factory pig farms. However as of yet there are no proven to be infected pig populations which is odd. Except, it isn't very clear yet what testing has or has not yet been conducted and the Mexican authorities aren't very forthcoming about what tests have been done exactly. When you say you have no infected pigs it would be nice to show, "Here's the testing that has been done, here's how many pig populations we ran studies on, etc."

The virus is certainly acting how you would expect a farm factory induced virus to act - with the most virulent and deadly strains of the virus residing closest to the center of it's suspected origins, the pigs.

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But the evidence doesn't really suggest that. Form the article I linked in the previous post:

None of the confirmed human cases has a history of being in recent contact with pigs, so the most likely explanation at the moment is that this is a new strain of H1N1. The reason it was called swine flu at the start of this crisis, he suggested, was because H1N1 is more commonly found in pigs, but to date there is no evidence that it did so in this case.

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The truth is, that the data really is inconclusive all around thus far.

The existence of avian, human and swine genes in the virus implies that at some point, all three have been infected with some preliminary form of the virus along the way (if it is naturally occurring).

Infinite Chaos said:

First death in the US reported today but still it's only Mexicans dying? Really strange patterns. Why is this virus active in the warmer months too?

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I was thinking that the mixture of Native American genes in the Mexican population may have some influence on them being more prone to dying, but it is 110% pure conjecture on my part and it's probably dead wrong.

Obviously, more Mexicans are infected than anyone else so far, and that would be a big factor in them being the first to die from the illness. It doesn't mean that non-Mexicans can't die from it at the same rates. They just may not have been infected at a high enough rate yet.

As far as the warmer months thing goes, I think that the rules regarding normal flu seasons are tossed out the window during real epidemics and pandemics.