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At this point in the news cycle, it may be prudent to define “flu epidemic” and its far scarier sibling, “flu pandemic.” “Epidemic” means simply that a sudden outbreak of the virus is spreading rapidly and affecting many people at the same time. In the UK, the National Health Services define it as when more than 400 people per 100,000 consult their doctor or go to the hospital with the flu or flu-like symptoms each week. In the US, a “flu epidemic” is defined by a percentage of deaths due to the flu or pneumonia each week. Flu epidemics happen all the time, virtually without anyone noticing: Each year on average, between 250,000 and 500,000 people die from the flu, according to the World Health Organization; in the US, an estimated 36,000 people die annually from flu-related illness.
But a flu epidemic does not mean that Pestilence, everyone’s favorite Horseman of the Apocalypse, has ridden into town on his white horse and is busily cutting down healthy humans like so much grass. Many of those flu epidemic cases can be mild, especially if caught early enough to treat with an antiviral like Tamiflu, or are lethal predominantly to the elderly, very young children, or individuals with already compromised immune systems.
A “flu pandemic,” however, does mean that Pestilence has moved in and is setting up shop. A flu pandemic has two main characteristics: That it’s a new strain of the virus, meaning that few people, if any, have resistance to it, and that it’s managed to work its way to more than one continent.
For those reasons, a flu pandemic can be extremely deadly. The World Health Organization has defined six stages of progression leading to a pandemic flu: Phases 1 through 3 see largely animal infection, with minimal human sickness; Phase 4 is sustained human infection; Phase 5 is human-to-human contact in at least two regions; and Phase 6 is pandemic, with widespread human infection. Right now, with this current bout of swine flu, we’re at Phase 3, where the flu is causing sporadic outbreaks in limited areas – meaning things aren’t too bad. we’re at Phase 4.
“Limited transmission under such restricted circumstances does not indicate that the virus has gained the level of transmissibility among humans necessary to cause a pandemic,” says WHO. Moreover, we’ve been at Phase 3 before, in the recent past, and Flu pandemics have actually occurred about three times every century since the 1500s. But with globalization having exploded in the years since the last one, a flu pandemic now has to the potential to kill 2 to 7.4 million people worldwide, according to WHO.
(If you want to take your mind off that scary sentence, let’s talk etymology. The word “epidemic” was first used by the poet Homer, the Greek preposition “epi,” meaning “on,” married to “demos,” the noun for “people,” meaning something like residence, or living in one’s country. It later took on its medical meaning after Hippocrates employed the word as the title of one of his medical treatises. For awhile, epidemic was a handle given to any collection of symptoms, from diarrhea to fevers, that affected a single area over a discrete period of time, but after the Middle Ages and the epidemics of the plague, it came to mean the outbreak a single, defined disease in an area.)
Comments (13)
Comment
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WHO’s bumped up the swine flu to Phase 4 (see news link above).
Better stock up on hand sanitizer and foreign imports, if we hit Phase 5 governments might start restricting trade.
posted by Brandon on 4-28-2009 at 10:38 am
With the infections in Asia and The Middle East in addition to Europe, hasn’t this now reached stage 5?
posted by Dan on 4-28-2009 at 11:52 am
I see the Walking Man…Captain Tripps are you out there?
posted by Lightlylilly on 4-28-2009 at 12:10 pm
Randall Flagg FTW.
posted by Matt Soniak on 4-28-2009 at 12:14 pm
I work for an export company (poultry and other food) and we got a notice that Russia is already banning U.S. Poultry and pork, some other states are banning pork from certain areas, and we’ve tried to move up out shipments to get them out before our customers’ countries do. It seems like it may only be a limited time before the US does the same.
posted by GoF on 4-28-2009 at 1:17 pm
The experts already spoke about this. It doesn’t transmit through food. Contact between people with saliva and mucous secretions is the way to get it. What everyone has to do, is follow with the instructions from the WHO, watch out for the symtoms and, if any, contact your doctor immediately. You can never be too careful when it comes to these things.
posted by Yessika on 4-28-2009 at 4:48 pm
I’ve been told that regular soap and warn water are most effective and preferred even over hand sanitizer.
Wash your hands people!
Tamiflu needs to be taken in the first 48 hours so fever and achey is good reason to call your doctor. Better safe than sorry.
posted by karen on 4-28-2009 at 6:44 pm
Maybe if I get the swine flu, Obama will bail out my immune system
posted by Drew on 4-28-2009 at 8:36 pm
Karen, you are right – washing your hands with warm soapy water is much better than using hand sanitizer.
Anti-bacterial hand sanitizers are actually really bad for your health in the long run because they kill only the weak bacteria, while the strongest forms live on to reproduce. Because their life cycle is so short, with continued sanitizer use it is not long before you have bred ultra-strong bacteria that can really make you sick.
Bottom line – stick to soap and water!
Stay healthy
posted by Kelco on 4-28-2009 at 8:51 pm
Here is a question I haven’t yet heard answered by the media: Does the current flu vaccine offer an protection against the swine flu?
posted by Michelle on 4-28-2009 at 9:07 pm
Hey guys, I have a tip for y’all:
WASH YOUR HANDS EVERY HOUR OF EVERYDAY. I don’t care if you break a nail or get pruny fingers or if people will think of you as a germaphobe, just wash your hands. If that still doesn’t work, just be in your home & PANIC!!!!!!! Nah, just joking.
posted by Karl on 4-28-2009 at 9:31 pm
Michelle, according to the news media/doctors in San Antonio, no, the regular flu vaccine does not protect against swine flu.
The link in my name is to the CDC’s info on the swine flu.
Recaptcha: collossus of (yeah, on SA news stations this week it’s info about the swine flu)
posted by Christi on 4-28-2009 at 11:26 pm
Soap & water are the way to go if you have ready access. It is true that the widespread use of anti-bacterial soap is likely to lead to resistance in bacteria (though viruses are the issue at hand). BUT, alcohol-based (alcohol is an antiseptic; not anti-bacterial) hand-sanitizer is acceptable when soap & water are not readily available. Sanitizers are awfully handy and more likely to be used. It’s fine and effective to use them. No advice is flawless, but I’ve had to read more on this than I like to admit.
Also, dido on the normal flu vaccine having no anticipated effect on the “swine flu”. At least this is what the CDC is saying. A new vaccine is needed and will probably take a good deal of time to produce (though officials seemed more hopeful on todays DHS briefing).
Everyone needs to cough/sneeze into their sleeve/a tissue, avoid the sick, isolate yourself when you are sick untill after symptoms are well past, and wash your hands A LOT (again, sanitizers are effective and make this more likely to actually happen).
Hopefully this will pan out to be less serious that we’re gearing up for. Then we can get back to worrying about the “Bird Flu” H5N1 (totally different strain & likely to be nasty) that everyone has been worrying about for years.
posted by PublicHealthGuy on 4-29-2009 at 11:34 pm