The Swine Flu

In less than four days, the world has learned that a new flu virus is on the march across the planet. Like several of its predecessor strains, this particular virus has caught the attention of health officials in every country.
History has taught the world that Flu can be a deadly killer. Understanding that, countries keep a healthy watch out for new strains. Canada’s Chief Public Health officer David Butler-Jones has confirmed that six cases of the Swine Flu have been detected in Canada.
Under his watch, 60,000,000 million doses of anti-viral medicine and vaccines have been prepared for such an emergency in Canada. Without SARS, the attention to this Swine Flu strain would not be taking place. The world learned from SARS that influenza could spread rapidly from human to human.
The Spanish Flu of 1918 killed over 50 million worldwide. The epidemic of 1957-58 killed 1-2,000,000 worldwide and the 1968-69 Hong Kong flu epidemic claimed over 700,000 worldwide.
The world has learned a great deal since the SARS outbreak to reduce the spread of Flu. Simple things like avoiding close contact with people who are sick, staying home when you are sick, covering your mouth and nose with a tissue when you cough and sneeze work.
Perhaps the most efficient way of protecting one’s self is by washing your hands with soap and water more frequently and avoiding touching your eyes, nose of mouth after touching someone else. Anything that eliminates that human-to-human contact will make it more difficult for the disease to spread.
The government, following the SARS outbreak established a set of protocols to deal with outbreaks in the future. It begins with monitoring flu outbreaks around the world. That is why today we hear of every Avian Flu outbreak.
The government then tracks the progress of those strains as they track out from their originating country. When the disease moves rapidly from one country to another, the citizens around the world are warned by their health departments to exercise care and provide additional information to the public to make them aware of the problem and provide them with symptom information.

On April 25, the World Health Organization declared the Swine Flu outbreak as an International concern.
Currently the World Health Organization has us on level 3 of a six level scale. The next level would be evidence of a community wide outbreak.
Today that is what the Public Health Agency of Canada has done. Governments around the world have taken steps to protect their citizens. Some countries have issued travel warnings to their citizens. In Mexico, the government recommended that all church services in the country be cancelled this past Sunday.
People travelling through Pearson International airport this week will see workers wearing masks and latex gloves as a precaution. At the US border, homeland security personnel are also screening people entering the country to see if they have been in contact with persons who have travelled to Mexico recently or who exhibit flu like symptoms.

–Jim Cumming,
Publisher