"ken" wrote in message
news:ff241517-a367-4a0b-9c8a-ce6c7f48b3ba@c1g2000yqi.googlegroups.com...
> The current "Swine Flu" virus is far more virulent the "Spanish Flu"
> virus that in 1918-20 killed significantly more people, than the total
> who died over the 4 years of WW1.
Spanish flu triggered excessive immune responses, which is why, unusually
for a flu, its victims were predominaantly young, healthy adults, with
strong immune systems. The current H1N1 outbreak is following traditional
flu pattern of killing the elderly, the very young and the infirm. Spanish
flu also triggered pneumonia in many of its victims, a disease that is far
less dangerous since the advent of antibiotics.
> Discounting the nonsense touted in the corporate media about antidotes
> (anything along these lines would take a minimum of 2 years to
> develop!),
There is no such thing as an 'antidote' to a virus. There are anti-viral
treatments, which are generic and which already exist, and there are
vaccines, which help trigger immunity. Winter flu vaccines are refomulated
every year and normally take from about February to August to develop and
about another month to produce in quantity. However, quite a lot of that
time can be dispensed with when targetting a specific flu variety, rather
than trying to analyse which three are likely to dominate in the next flu
season. In fact, the real danger from making a vaccine against novel H1N1
(swine flu) is that it will not also be possible to make seasonal flu
vaccine as well.
> it would seem that when the virus has mutated to its full
> strength, that numbers of deaths are likely to be much greater than in
> the earlier pandemic.
It is already showing signs of mutating - to a milder form..
Colin Bignell
|