Health

Seasonal Warnings
by Claudia Sonea

Summer is almost over and people are coming back from their well deserved holidays. Everyone is more relaxed and in a better mood than before, ready to take on the rains, the storms, the cloudy weather that is about to come, now that Fall is knocking on the door. There is also an increasing concern for something that was once regarded as a natural consequence of the low temperature: the flu. Health officials are already calling in people to get their vaccine, because the swine flu is becoming an imminent danger during the cold seasons. Swine flu/influenza dates back to the 1918s when pigs got sick in the same time with humans. The virus is in ! fact a strain of a family of viruses that is endemic in pigs, but the transmission rarely occurs from the animals to humans. There are several subtypes among which Influenza B was not found in pigs, only to humans. Around 100 million people died during the 1918 outbreak, while the exact origin of the virus remains a mystery. Other outbreaks took place in 1976, 1988, 1998 (they discovered that pigs carry the virus and the combination of genes from different strains), 2007, and in 2009 when the H1N1 viral strain was classified as a new type of virus related to that of 1918 and combining four strains of influenza A virus. In order to prevent a major global pandemic, many countries already started their vaccination campaigns. Parents are urged to get the vaccine for the safety of their children if not for their own, and that it is best to take both seasonal and swine flu vaccinations. Yet, some experts say that mass vaccination increases the risk of new bloo! d-borne viruses. Moreover, there is also the concern for Thime! rosal, a n organomercury compound used as antiseptic and antifungal agent that can be very letal when inhaled and was banned from routine childhood vaccines in EU, US and other countries. Remember to have handkerchiefs with you at all times, to sneeze and chough only in a handkerchief and if you feel you might be getting the flu, don’t waste time, just go take a test for the Swine Flu, just to be sure. Without the certainty that the vaccine works, all you can do is to make sure you are not expose, that you take all the prevention measure.

related story (sgx15252): http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090827/ap_on_he_me/us_med_flu_p...

by Claudia Sonea for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

PocketNews is a new real-time news broadcaster delivering the latest and hottest news right to your pocket ! With global clients who want to be kept up to date, PocketNews is everyone's way of keeping in touch with the World.

posted by Blog TechSource @ 3:04 PM