WHO close to raising alert to highest level for swine flu
Published June 9, 2009 at 6:49 p.m.
The H1N1 outbreak would be considered a pandemic. But the health organization is worried that could lead to border closings, travel restrictions and people with mild illnesses flooding ERs...
...The World Health Organization is inching closer to raising the infectious disease alert level for the novel H1N1 influenza outbreak to its highest level, indicating that a pandemic has arrived, but has delayed doing so in an effort to prepare national health organizations and populations for the impact of such an announcement, said Dr. Keiji Fukuda, assistant director general of the agency, this morning in a telephone news conference.
This site was created to help deal with the H1N1 influenza flu pandemic. Flu preparation is important! You can have an immunization with the flu vaccine, you can have the flu shot; flu shots are good before you are showing flu symptoms, although the current trivalent influenza vaccine is unlikely to provide protection against the new 2009 H1N1 strain, vaccines against the new strain are being developed and could be ready as early as June 2009.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in humans the symptoms of H1N1 swine flu are similar to those of influenza and of influenza-like illness in general. Symptoms include fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue. The 2009 outbreak has shown an increased percentage of patients reporting diarrhea and vomiting.
Recommendations to prevent the spread of the virus among humans include using standard infection control against influenza. This includes frequent washing of hands with soap and water or with alcohol-based hand sanitizers, especially after being out in public.