http://www.can-you-hear-us-now.com/
December 3, 2009
Homeland Security has released a warning from its site that there is a growing concern that the H1N1 virus, aka "Swine Flue," may team up with its deadly cousin H5N1, or "Bird Flu" and produce a cocktail of deadly concern for the world. Not only would this new strain be more virulent, but would have the transmissibility of A-H1N1. This would be very troubling and deadly for a lot of people throughout the world. (Correction - the site, under link "More Information" does not lead to the official DHS site. Read the article and take it for its referral to WHO and their concerns. You can contact the author of the article for more information.)This comes at a time when the World Health Organization, (WHO) is reporting that there is a very high pandemic activity in Italy, Norway, the Republic of Moldova, the Russian Federation (Urals region), and Sweden. If you have plans to travel to those areas, you may want to determine what your risks of illness are and consider making other arrangements until this epidemic lessens.
Meanwhile, authorities believe that there is a second peak coming in the world of the more common A-H1N1 flu in some parts of the world. We very well could have the worst ahead of us. We will not know, of course, until after this passes but we are just getting into the flu season here in the States, in a substantial way.
Concerns Grow Over Possible H1N1-H5N1 'Reassortment,' Other Mutations
WHO warned that the H5N1 virus has emerged in poultry in Egypt, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam just as the H1N1 pandemic influenza continues its rampage across the world. "The most obvious risk is of H5N1 combining with the pandemic ... [H1N1] virus, producing a flu virus that is as deadly as the former and as contagious as the latter," a spokesman for WHO stated.
That the two flu strain could merge, reassert, and produce a new hybrid influenza strain combining the worst elements of each of the viruses is a possibility that authorities have been worrying about ever since the spread of the A-H1N1 virus increased to pandemic level.
Across Europe, the number of deaths related to pandemic H1N1 has doubled nearly every two weeks since mid-October.
US influenza and public health authorities agreed in interviews with HSToday.us. They said the number of people infected in the US is undoubtedly “much higher” than the number of lab-confirmed cases given that most people who exhibit traditional H1N1 sickness symptoms are not tested to determine if they have H1N1 or a seasonal flu virus strain.
HSToday.us reported last week that four patients at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, NC, at least five persons in a hospital in Wales, and a father in Quebec, Canada become infected with an apparently mutated strain of H1N1 that is resistant to Tamiflu (oseltamivir), the leading antiviral of choice to treat influenza in lieu of having a vaccine.
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