Swine Flu: What you Need to Know
Posted on Tuesday, April 28th, 2009 and is filed under Health, Political & General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
9. Can I catch it from pigs?
No. This strain is one that is communicable through human-to-human contact. It is a mutated form of a swine virus.
10. Can I catch it from eating pork?
Absolutely not! Swine flu is not transmitted by food. It is not a so-called food-borne illness. Bacon, ham and other pork products are safe to eat, assuming they are prepared properly. An internal temperature of 160 degrees for cooked meat will kill any bacteria or virus.
Swine flu is transmitted by airborne droplets from an infected person’s sneeze or cough; or from germs on hands, or germ-laden surfaces. Eating pork will not give you swine flu any more than eating chicken will give you bird flu.
11. How does it cross from a pig to a human?
The swine virus mutates so that it can infect humans and be spread by humans.
12. Can it kill me?
Deaths have been reported from the Mexico City outbreak. So far, the cases in the US have been mild and there have been no deaths as of this writing (Monday, April 27) we do not know all the factors geographically and demographically that may contribute to the mildness or severity of this flu. But, like seasonal flu, there is the potential for serious outcomes.
13. Why the big concern if the regular flu kills 35,000 people a year, which is why we are all encouraged to get a flu shot?
This is a new flu strain that our bodies have not been exposed to before. The flu strains that the CDC creates a vaccine for each year all have the potential to cause great harm, especially in elderly, pediatric and chronically ill patients. This particular flu strain has struck seemingly healthy, young adults, with some resulting in death in Mexico. It also appears to be quite contagious. We will know more about this strain in the coming days.
14. How is it different from avian (bird) flu?
Avian flu so far has had difficulty infecting humans unless they are exposed intensely to birds, because the virus has not mutated in a way that makes it transmissible by humans to other humans. This virus has origins genetically from both pigs and birds, and the big difference from the avian flu is that this swine virus can be transmitted readily from human to human.
15. Is this just another scare that will go away like bird flu?
Bird flu is a theoretical threat and will need a mutation to be able to be transmitted among humans to become a serious threat. The present “swine/avian” virus clearly has already caused a major outbreak in Mexico City and San Luis Potosi, Mexico and has spread to places in the US (California, New York, Texas, Kansas and Ohio). What is not clear yet is whether this virus will result in a so-called pandemic-worldwide spread with major outbreaks–or whether it will fizzle out. But, even if it fizzles out, there is logical concern that it might re-emerge next flu season.
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