a malaysian abroad

Breaking news!:  Kilmer Elementary School, a Rogers Park school in Chicago’s North Side, has been closed due to a student having a probable case of swine flu.  If confirmed, this will bring the number of states with confirmed cases of swine flu to at least ELEVEN.  There has been one death so far due to swine flu here in the United States.

mosquito bite 3 by biborg

When whispers of “swine flu” started circulating last week, I wondered if this was the same thing as the Japanese Encephalitis (JE) thingy that afflicted Malaysia in the late 90s (it interrupted filming of Anna and the King!).  What’s the link?  You see, during this JE outbreak, pigs got a really bad rep: while mosquitoes are the vectors of the disease, pigs act as a reservoir for said virus.  As such, you needed mosquitoes to suck on an infected pig, then flit on to a human victim, in order to pass JE on to humans.  Therefore pigs bore the brunt of the blame, and pig farms were essentially instructed to kill all animals and shut down.  So I wondered if “swine flu” was another way of saying JE.

It’s not.

Swine flu really is a type of flu, so named because it is endemic to pigs.  While swine flu is usually not easily ‘caught’ from pigs and once caught isn’t usually easily passed on to other humans, unfortunately Mother Nature is reminding us that unusual or unlikely doesn’t mean “never”.  This strain of flu has mutated such that it’s now affecting humans and seems to be all too easily transmitted:

(From updates as of April 29, 2009, 22:54 GMT +0800)

Here is a list of CONFIRMED INFECTIONS, according to the World Health Organization and national governments:

Aaahchooo! A regular cold, or swine flu? sneeze by evah

• USA 65
• Mexico 26
• Canada 13
• Germany 3
• New Zealand 3
• Britain 5
• Costa Rica 2
• Israel 2
• New Zealand 3
• Spain 4
• Austria 1

Here is a list of countries with SUSPECTED INFECTIONS:

• Argentina 3
• Australia 91
• Chile 8

Stay healthy: wash your hands! image source

• Colombia 9
• Denmark 5
• France 2
• Hong Kong 2
• Ireland 3
• Netherlands “several”
• Poland 3
• Portugal 1
• South Africa 2
• Sweden 5
• Switzerland 5
• South Korea 6

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What can you do to stay healthy? The same things you do in general to keep germs away!

• Cover your nose and mouth when you sneeze.  Ideally use a tissue, which you then discard after the sneeze.  No tissue handy? Sneeze into the crook of your arm/catch it on your sleeve, not on your hands.
• Wash your hands with soap and water, especially after you sneeze.  Sing the birthday song twice as you soap and lather up before rinsing.  Using alcohol-based sanitisers also work.
• Avoid touching your eyes, nose, or mouth.
• Avoid coming into contact with sick people: the flu is believed to spread via coughs and sneezes of infected persons.

…. but most importantly, if you get sick, please consider staying home, rather than forcing yourself to go to work, school, etc, where you might end up passing the germs on to others.

Fun!  :p

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