Apr 16
SWINE FLU
The flu caught everybody by surprise and suddenly, rentals of outbreak movies are soaring and people are demanding governments develop vaccines for the new flu scourge that has in a matter of months circled the globe and continues to kill people. Viruses are the most feared health risks due to their ability to mutate and change from time to time. Flu is a common illness that everybody get sick of and is normally a seasonal disease that occurs during the entry of the cold months when our bodies are adjusting to colder weather as winter approaches. Just what is it about viruses that makes them so dangerous? They are simple and quite effective at their infectious abilities, being mere genetic material encapsulated within a protective jacket of protein, ready to wreak havoc on people who have no immunity to their genetic mutating abilities.
The most dangerous form of the virus is when it goes into dormancy and dries up, at which time it goes airborne, able to survive even long periods ready to re-animate their destructive genetic code when they get the ideal conditions. Flu viruses need specific conditions to propagate and this is normally the damp and wet environment of out nasal passages. Just a single flu virus particle can induce the over-reaction that causes the symptoms of the flu, but thanks to the fact the swine flu virus has yet to turn into an airborne virus it is still at a manageable level. Developed countries have isolation wards that are able to deal with such viruses to halt their spread. Mexico has closed of the capital city, banning people grouping together in close quarters which spreads viruses. Just one sneeze and it releases flu particles to thousands of possible victims. On a closed environment such as an airplane where air is re-circulated for hours on end, the virus can spread unknowingly to all passengers in the time it takes to reach their destinations. Once there, an infected person/s has the potential to spread the virus through touch, sneezing and even breathing and the infection spreads.
The world was caught off-guard with this new virus for it spread so fast even the best medical experts have no vaccines designed to limit the casualty rates for such new diseases. We are at a race to develop defenses against the new flu virus strain, which would surely haunt us in the coming months as the extreme weather conditions weakens the immune system of more and more people, making the susceptible to infection, ready to make more viruses to spread amongst the population of the earth, most of whom still have to train their immune systems to deal with the new virus as it continues to ravage the lives of people who get infected.