Swine Flu
Swine Influenza -- commonly known as Swine Flu is a type of infectious disease caused by the Swine Influenza Virus (SIV). Swine Influenza Virus (SIV) or Swine-Origin Influenza Virus (S-OIV) is very common in pigs all over the orld (Siegel, 2). The major two types of Swine influenza are influenza C. And Influenza A. Influenza A is further classified into four major classes; H1N1, H1N2, H3N1, H3N2, and H2N3 (Stephenson, 7). Swine flu is mostly caused by Influenza A. This influenza is more contagious and dangerous for pigs because a considerable percentage of pigs die from swine flu disease every year. Swine Flu is transmitted from one pig to another in many ways; by aerosols, through direct or indirect interaction, or contact with already infected pigs (Tasian, 8). The sub-types of Influenza A are not as dangerous as H1N1. However, a pig can get infected by more than one…...
mlaWorks Cited
McPhee, Stephen, Papadakis, Maxine. Medical Diagnosis and Treatment 2011. Maidenhead, UK: McGraw Hill Health Professions, 2010. Print
Siegel, Marc. Swine Flu: The New Pandemic. U.S.: John Wiley and Sons, 2009. Print
Stephenson, Terence. Swine flu: what parents need to know? London, Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2009. Print
Stooker, Richard. Beat the flu: protect yourself and your family from swine flu, bird flu, pandemic flu and season flu. Charleston, SC: Info Ring Press: Create Space, 2010. Print
Swine Flu
You emembe the geat swine flu epidemic of 2009, ight? Really, you don't emembe the school's being closed acoss the county afte the fist wave of fatalities? And how people stopped eating pok to such an extent that fames simply slaughteed most of thei pigs and then buned the meat? You don't emembe that? Well, of couse not. No-one does, because it didn't happen. It also tue that no one knows why it didn't happen.
The inteesting question at this point, as one looks back to the way in which decisions wee made to stop an epidemic befoe it got stated. In the aftemath of the flu season, when thee had been no outbeak, many people citicized public health officials fo having ove-eacted. Those officials in tun agued two points. Fist, it was bette to ove-eact than to unde-eact because the consequences of the fome wee fa moe die than…...
mlareferences and decisions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60, 181-192.
Wilson, H. et al. (2008). Likely Effectiveness of Quarantine for Pandemic Influenza Control at the Borders of Island Countries
China, for example, reports fewer cases than Hong Kong, despite the massive population difference and the high amount of trade between the two. Moreover, China reports only one death from swine flu for its nearly 16,000 cases, which would give it a success rate in treatment better than all other countries in the world save for Germany. China's one reported death is equivalent to the number of reported deaths in the Solomon Islands, St. Kitts and the Cook Islands, among other tiny countries with few cases (Flucount.org, 2009).
It is difficult for citizens and authorities to truly understand the nature of the swine flu epidemic, due to the fact that each different jurisdiction reports its own numbers. This leads to different criteria for measuring and different underlying motivations for reporting. As a result, contentious data and missing data compromise our ability to understand the nature and depth of the swine…...
mlaWorks Cited:
Best, Joel. (2004). More Damned Lies and Statistics. University of California Press: Berkeley.
Shirek, Jon. (2009). Georgia Won't Test all Type -- a Flu Patients for H1N1 Virus. NBC. Retrieved September 29, 2009 from http://www.11alive.com/news/national/story.aspx?storyid=129763&catid=165
No author. (2009). Swine Flu Count. Flucount.org. Retrieved September 29, 2009 from http://www.flucount.org/
Certainly, the public was informed in early 2009 that there was a new flu occurring in Mexico with far different epidemiologic characteristics and clinical profiles than traditional flu strains. Yet, our healthcare officials seem to be caught off guard by H1N1 spiking months earlier than other flu strains. Given a new flu strain, it seems reasonable that there should have been expectations that it could have different seasonal patterns.
The fact that there are only five manufacturers is another issue that needs to be understood. Why so few, given the many warnings of the potential for a wide-spread pandemic? One has to wonder if our government should have done more to encourage additional manufacturers, perhaps even subsidizing or offering other financial incentives for production. The article doesn't discuss the percentages of the H1N1 vaccine that the manufacturers are producing and which ones are experiencing glitches. Perhaps a larger number of…...
mlaBibliography
Fiore, M. (2009, October 21). H1N1 running rampant amid shortage of vaccine. Fox News.
H1N1 BKA Swine FluIntroductionThe H1N1 influenza virus, also known as the swine flu, is a respiratory disease caused by the influenza A virus subtype H1N1 (Diwakar et al., 2021). The virus was first identified in Mexico in 2009, and it quickly spread to become a global pandemic. This paper will examine the influences, effects, and outcomes of the H1N1 swine flu pandemic.InfluencesThe H1N1 swine flu virus was first identified in Mexico in April 2009. The virus quickly spread to other countries, with the first cases outside of Mexico reported in the United States in late April 2009. From there, the virus rapidly spread globally, with cases reported in countries around the world.By June 2009, the World Health Organization (WHO) had issued its declaration that the swine flu outbreak constituted a global pandemic, with widespread transmission of the virus in multiple countries (Chavda et al., 2022). The virus continued to spread…...
mlaReferencesChavda, V., Bezbaruah, R., Kalita, T., Sarma, A., Devi, J. R., Bania, R., & Apostolopoulos, V. (2022). Variant influenza: connecting the missing dots. Expert Review of Anti-infective Therapy, 20(12), 1567-1585.De Angelis, G., Lohmeyer, F. M., Grossi, A., Posteraro, B., & Sanguinetti, M. (2021). Hand hygiene and facemask use to prevent droplet-transmitted viral diseases during air travel: a systematic literature review. BMC Public Health, 21(1), 1-9.Diwakar, R. P., Kumar, P., Yadav, V., & Verma, H. C. (2021). Swine Flu and Its Impact on Public Health. Call for Editorial Board Members, 9(1), 25.Holliday, E., Hope, J., & Potterton, A. U. (2022). Where is it Safe? Questioning Education Policy, Safety, and Choices for Students Traveling Internationally During a Global Health Crisis. Communication and Catastrophic Events: Strategic Risk and Crisis Management, 11-28.Jhaveri, R. (2020). Echoes of 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic in the COVID pandemic. Clinical therapeutics, 42(5), 736-740.
H1N1 flu and its impact on the students of a school in Lincoln, Nebraska. On a particular Wednesday, this school had 221 sick students who reported flu-like symptoms and this rate dropped to 191 on Thursday. The author clearly conveys how this threat can spread quickly among students and the options available to the school Principal to tackle this situation. The article is well-written and it is mostly centered around the happening of Pius X Catholic High School. The author has given a lot of importance to the actions taken by the Principal and his opinion on how the situation should be handled.
The implicit message of the article is clearly about how the school is completely unprepared to face this health threat. The school did not even have a sick room and out of necessity, an administration room had to be converted to a sick room for the students…...
mlaReferences
Selyukh, Alina. (2009, September 3). Swine Flu May Be Behind 191 illnesses at school. Retrieved from: http://abcnews.go.com
Communicable Disease: Influenza
Description of the Disease
Influenza or "the flu" is a common illness in the winter months, all throughout the United States and many other countries. Both birds and all mammals can contract influenza (Brankston, et al., 2007). In recent years there have been scares regarding "bird flu" and "swine flu," both of which are simply different strains of influenza. The cause of the flu is an NA virus in the family Orthomyxoviridae (Eccles, 2005). Once people contract the flu, they present with common symptoms such as chills, fever, a runny nose, muscle pains, a sore throat, and a headache. The headache is quite often severe, and flu sufferers may also have weakness, fatigue, severe bouts of coughing, and a general feeling of overall discomfort. People with the flu can also become nauseated and vomit, although that is more typical in children and not nearly as common in adults (Eccles,…...
mlaReferences
Ballinger, M.N. & Standiford, T.J. (2010). Postinfluenza bacterial pneumonia: Host defenses gone awry. Journal of Interferon Cytokine Research, 30(9): 643 -- 52.
Brankston, G., Gitterman, L., Hirji, Z., Lemieux, C., & Gardam, M. (2007). Transmission of influenza A in human beings. Lancet Infectious Diseases, 7(4): 257 -- 65.
Eccles, R. (2005). Understanding the symptoms of the common cold and influenza. Lancet Infectious Diseases, 5(11): 718 -- 25.
Harper, S.A., Fukuda, K., Uyeki, T.M., Cox, N.J., & Bridges, C.B. (2005). Prevention and control of influenza. Recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). MMWR Recommendation Report, 54(RR -- 8): 1 -- 40.
Like much of the other material under review, the only way to control a flu pandemic is to develop more technologically savvy prediction models, more complex warning and communication systems, and globally coordinated response preparation.
Schmidt, C. (2009). Swine CAFOs & Novel H1N1 Flu: Separating Facts from Fears. Environmental Health erspectives. 117 (9): A394-401.
Schmidt writes in a popular science mode and hopes to help the public understand how flu viruses regularly mutate through avian and swine farming sources. The article chronicles the conditions that most swine are subjected, and explains the nature of an antigenic shift in birds and hogs, then to humans. Overall, the situation is complex and multidimensional. The flu pandemic cannot be won on a medical basis only; but requires global economic, political, and even organizational cooperation.
Yang, Y., et.al. (2009). The Transmissibility and Control of andemic Influenza a (H1N1) Virus. Science. 326 (4): 729-33.
andemic H1N1 flu has…...
mlaPandemic H1N1 flu has now spread globally and is the dominant flu strain in the Southern Hemisphere. The authors estimate that about 30% of all exposed will manifest the virus, and a typical schoolchild will infect at least 2 others during the initial course of the outbreak. The major point of the article focuses on vaccination strategies, finding that if an appropriate vaccine were available early enough, vaccination of children, older adults, then the regular adult population might prevent a serious outbreak with a 70% vaccine coverage ratio.
Zimmer, S., and Burke, D. (2009). Historical Perspective -- Emergency of Influenza a (H1N1) Viruses. The New England Journal of Medicine. 361 (3): 279-85.
This is a focused historical study of the manner in which the Spanish Flu mutated over decades, becoming less virulent and then mutating more into avian and swine flu. Each mutation is cataloged by year, showing its mutation, method of infection, and overall basic organic makeup. Rather than focusing on solutions, the article is more a chronicle of the events surrounding a virus particularly adapted to humans and our agricultural practices.
, 2001). These two simple measures can drastically increase the subsequent spread of infectious disease throughout the country.
In Outbreak, the military institutes martial law to quarantine the infected populace in the town of Cedar Creek. Eventually, the military begins plans to bomb Cedar Creek in an attempt to eradicate the virus, which had thus far proven untenable. hile the concept of the United States government destroying a small town and murdering its populace is likely superlative Hollywood movie-making, the institution of martial law is a realistic and effective approach toward preventing further spread (Yassi et al., 2001).
In addition to the non-medical measures which can be taken to deal with the spread of an infectious agent, there are several medical actions which could be utilized to treat infected invididuals, including antivirals, antibiotics, or vaccines (Yassi et al., 2001). For example, antivirals and vaccines are both being utilized in an effort to…...
mlaWorks Cited
Cavendish, M. (2007). Diseases and Disorders (p. 328). Marshall Cavendish.
Groseth, A., Feldmann, H., & Strong, J.E. (2007). The ecology of Ebola virus. Trends in Microbiology, 15(9), 408-416. doi: 10.1016/j.tim.2007.08.001.
Petersen, W. (1995). Outbreak. Warner Bros. Pictures.
Preston, R. (2009). Panic in Level 4 (p. 230). Random House, Inc.
air traffic has continued to increase and it now constitutes a considerable proportion of the travelling public. The amount of long-hour flights has increased significantly. Based on the International Civil Aviation authority, air traffic can be anticipated to double amid till 2020. Airline travel, especially over longer distances, makes air travelers vulnerable to numerous facets that will impact their health and well-being. Particularly, the speed with which influenza spreads and mutates, via transportation routes, is the reason why the influenza pandemic is considered to be a huge threat to the human population. Pandemic is a term, which is used for a virus or microbe when it spreads over a large area, in severe cases even the whole world and large number of people start getting affecting by it (CDC, 2009).
In the past 300 years, there have been ten significant influenza pandemics outbreaks that have taken place in this world. The…...
mlaReferences
Airports Council International (2009) Airport preparedness guidelines for outbreaks of communicable disease. Available at: (Accessed: 28 November 2011)http://www.airports.org/aci/aci/file/ACI_Priorities/Health/Airport%20preparedness%20guidelines.pdf
Bouma, G.D. (2002) The research process. 4th edn. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
Brigantic, R., Delp, W., Gadgil A., Kulesz, J., Lee, R., Malone, J.D. (2009) U.S. airport entry screening in response to pandemic influenza: Modeling and analysis. Available at: (Accessed: 28 November 2011)http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B7578-4W2M6SG1&_user=10843&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000000150&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10843&md5=44685b11dd53d74a8ef85a4f03e185f2
Bush, George W. (2003a). Homeland security presidential directive -- 5: Management of domestic incidents. Available at: (Accessed: 28 November 2011)http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030228-9.html
U.S. Military Institute Quarantine?
Law and Policy:
Can the U.S. Military Institute Quarantine Without Legal Issues?
Instituting a quarantine of large numbers of people within the United States would be complicated and difficult, but is it legal? More clearly, is it legal for the military to do such a thing without any kind of legislative or legal issue. If it is legal for the military to do this, there must be various requirements that have to be met in order to ensure that issues are handled properly. If it is not legal for the military to undertake such action, why not? And is there legislation being considered that would make this type of action legal? The question comes about in light of recent issues with the H1N1 "swine flu" scare, where many people thought the U.S. was going to be overtaken by this new strain of flu that would kill large numbers…...
mlaReferences
18 U.S.C. § 1385 - Use of Army and Air Force as Posse Comitatus
Ahrcanum. (2009). H1N1 swine flu quarantine legal in USA. Retrieved from http://ahrcanum.wordpress.com/2009/09/28/h1n1-swine-flu-quarantine-usa/
Hendell, G.B. (2011). Domestic use of the armed forces to maintain law and order -- posse comitatus pitfalls at the inauguration of the 44th president" Publius (2011) 41(2): 336-348
Lindorff, D. (1988). Could It Happen Here? Mother Jones Magazine.
Prevention and Control of the Flu
The flu is a serious illness but one of its great advantages is that a vaccine does exist to contain its spread and prevent or at least mitigate its symptoms. The flu is a virus and available antiviral medications like Tamiflu are not as effective as treating, for example, a bacterial infection with an antibiotic. The most effective method of treating the flu is to not get it at all -- which is why vaccination is so essential. However, even flu vaccinations are not particularly effective on a seasonal basis: "A flu virus mutates at an exceptionally high rate as it reproduces, and some mutations will change the tips of the surface proteins. The antibodies cannot grab tightly to the altered tips, so the virus is able to proceed with its invasion. From one flu season to the next, the evolution of the flu renders…...
mlaReferences
Mwangi, T. Bethony. J. & Brooker, S. (2006). Malaria and helminth interactions in humans: an epidemiological viewpoint. Annals of Tropical Medicine and Parasitology, 100(7): 551-570. Retrieved from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1858631/
Zimmer, C. (2013). The quest to end the flu. The Atlantic. Retrieved from:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/12/the-quest-to-end-the-flu/354677/
As of May 2, 2009, CNN has reported there are 160 confirmed cases of swine flu across the United States of America and about 108 cases throughout the rest of the world.
Although the swine flu (H1N1) strain's discovery in the 1930s has shown not so much an aggressive spread of the disease through the years worldwide, a flaccid approach to the prevention and eradication of any communicable pathogen could result into a catastrophe worldwide, as transmission methods are numerous and casual like mere sneezing, coughing, and usual human activities, like handshakes, kissing and talking with an infected or healthy pathogen carrier.
Preventive measures include keeping one's self healthy by having a well-balanced diet, taking in ample or optimal amounts of water (8 glasses of water for normal individuals) to keep one normally hydrated, getting enough quality sleep and rest (normally 8 hours of sleep) with some stress relieving naps, taking…...
mlaReferences
Black, Richard. Global Warming risk 'much higher'. BBC NEWS. 23 May 2006.
H1N1
I chose this topic because the H1N1 virus and the swine flu have taken over the news. The Ohio Department of Health is heavily committed in getting the word out. "During the week of October 18-24, 2009, influenza activity continued to increase in the United States as reported in FluView. Flu activity is now widespread in 48 states. Nationally, visits to doctors for influenza-like-illness continue to increase steeply and are now higher than what is seen at the peak of many regular flu seasons. In addition, flu-related hospitalizations and deaths continue to go up nation-wide and are above what is expected for this time of year." (ODH).
The story is both a local and national headline. The television news report '60 Minutes' lead off this week's show with a serious discussion about all aspects of the new viral spread of the H1N1 virus and issues regarding the production process and current…...
mlaReferences
American Society for Microbiology and (Corporate Author) Patrick R. Murray. (2003). Manual of Clinical Microbiology (Manual of Clinical Microbiology). 8th ed. American Society Microbiology.
CDC. (2009). H1N1. Retrieved on November 1, 2009, from Center For Disease Control web site at
Policy
Democracy and Public Administration
This report is a theoretical essay on the inevitable conflicts that consistently occur between public agencies that are managed by unelected civil servants and the political environment in which these individuals and organizations operate in. Public agencies in the healthcare environment are prime examples of successful interdepartmental cooperation in most cases, but, there are also examples where they can demonstrate both internal and external in-fighting. "The health sector workforce, which usually comprises a significant element within the total public sector workforce, may be either directly employed by the public sector health system, or work in public-funded agencies or organizations (e.g., social insurance funded). In many countries healthcare will also be delivered by organizations in the private sector and by voluntary organizations." (World Bank Group) As concerns like the nation's aging population, a rapidly depleting Medicare Trust or the many potential pandemics such as SAs, Swine Flu, Aides…...
mlaReferences
Antos, Joseph. (2008). "Medicare's Bad News: Is Anyone Listening?" American Institute for Public Policy Research. April, No. 3.
American Public Health Association (2009). Retrieved on November 2, 2009, from American Public Health Association Web Site: aphanet. (2001). Senators' Introduce Bill to Prepare For Possibility of Biological Warfare. Retrieved on November 2, 2009, from http://www.aphanet.org http://www.apha.org
CDC. (2009). H1N1. Retrieved on November 3, 2009, from Center For Disease Control web site at
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