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| -Signs, Portents, and the Weather- |
| Latest 70's Flashback: Swine Flu Reported in TX & CA |
| 2009-04-24 |
| Seven people have been diagnosed with a strange and unusual new kind of swine flu in California and Texas, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Thursday. "We believe at this point that human-to-human spread is occurring," Schuchat said. "That's unusual. We don't know yet how widely it is spreading ... We are also working with international partners to understand what is occurring in other parts of the world." Two of the new cases were among 16-year-olds at the same school in San Antonio "and there's a father-daughter pair in California," Schuchat said. One of the boys whose cases was reported on Tuesday had flown to Dallas but the CDC has found no links to the other Texas cases. Unusually, said the CDC's Nancy Cox, the viruses all appear to carry genes from swine flu, avian flu and human flu viruses from North America, Europe and Asia. I guess this is multiculturalism, bacteria-style? "We haven't seen this strain before, but we hadn't been looking as intensively as we have," Schuchat said. "It's very possible that this is something new that hasn't been happening before." Or one that somebody whipped up in a lab The influenza strain is an H1N1, the same family as one of the seasonal flu viruses now circulating. Now that the normal influenza season is waning, it may be easier to spot cases of the new swine flu, Schuchat said. Only one of the seven cases was sick enough to be hospitalized and all have recovered, Schuchat said. The new cases appear to have somewhat more vomiting and diarrhea than is usually seen in flu, which mostly causes coughing, fever, sore throat and muscle aches. Cox said the CDC is already preparing a vaccine against the new strain, just in case. "This is standard operating procedure," Cox said. |
| Posted by:Cornsilk Blondie |
| #3 |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2009-04-24 15:05 |
| #2 |
| Posted by: Frank G 2009-04-24 14:37 |
| #1 |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2009-04-24 09:29 |