Posted on 04/25/2009 6:30:14 PM PDT by Mr. Mojo
ATLANTA (AP) - Why has the swine flu engulfing Mexico been deadly there, but not in the United States?
Nearly all those who died in Mexico were between 20 and 40 years old, and they died of severe pneumonia from a flu-like illness believed caused by a unique swine flu virus.
The 11 U.S. victims cover a wider age range, as young as 9 to over 50. All those people either recovered or are recovering; at least two were hospitalized.
"So far we have been quite fortunate," said Dr. Anne Schuchat of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Saturday, just hours before three new U.S. cases were confirmed.
Health experts worry about a flu that kills healthy young adults - a hallmark of the worst global flu epidemics. Deaths from most ordinary flu outbreaks occur among the very young and very old.
Why the two countries are experiencing the illness differently is puzzling public health experts, who say they frankly just don't know.
It may be that the bug only seems more deadly in Mexico.
And while experts believe Mexico is the epicenter of the outbreak, they're not certain if new cases are occurring or if the situation is getting worse. They also don't know if another virus might be circulating in Mexico that could be compounding the problem.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.myway.com ...
If there was ever an epidemic outbreak, or some other catastrophic natural or unnatural disaster, remember that water from the tap just doesn't happen. It takes an incredible amount of manpower, chemicals and maintenance to deliver that water to your house. If there aren't engineers, or maintenance men or access to the right chemicals because the transportation system has shut down, it means there won't be any running water, hence the need for bottled water. FWIW.
I love it!!
-PJ
It's mostly a pretty dirty place, man.
That is either arrogant or weak, I can't decide.
Or are you just from Maryland and I am mistaken?
Just wondering. I live in in the country, way out in the boondocks, with my own well, and many natural water sources nearby.
Because our diet is better than theirs? More of us exercise and pay attention to staying healthy? Take vitamins?
Probably all of that plus sanitation.
My doc back in SFrancisco, head of internal med at UCSF, told me the bacteria, germs, etc in Mexico were worse than Africa. Perhaps the Mexican populace’s collective immune system is just pooped.
As long as you have a manual or alternative energy source (something other than city electric) for you well pump, you're golden.
I could be from Maryland, but I’m to arrogant or weak to decide. I don’t use my screen name to add credence to my remarks, and really don’t care whether you believe what I say or not. Someone got up on the wrong side of the bed this AM
Good point.
Many years ago, we were in an auto accident in Mexico and three in the car were taken to the nearest hospital. The doctors did the best they could but sanitation was appalling. My son had a cut on his head requiring stitches, and the nurses washed it WITH TAP WATER and their BARE HANDS. Naturally I made a B-line to our doc at home the next day who declared the stitches “beautiful” and gave the kid a tetanus shot.
I'm a goner if Cat Flu strikes.
It could also be that some of the thousands of folks from Asian countries brought the virus to Mexico as they passed through trying to cross our border. Seems like a real possibility since this is the first known major flu outbreak for Mexico.
Alternative thought....
Rotten Stinking Mexicans............
(My what a terrible thing to say - but go down there sometime and you see that many if not most live in complete squalor.
“Why bottled water?”
So that when you and everyone else in your household are laid up with the flu you can hydrate without getting out of bed.
Staying hydrated is critical when you have a fever. It may keep you from cooking your brain.
But . . . but . . . but . . . if I am that sick someone will take care of me — except if everyone in your house is that sick, too. But . . . but . . . but . . . if that happens I can get a doctor or go to the hospital — except if this is a 1918-type influenza the doctors will be just as sick and the hospitals will so crowded they be laying out patients on the floor.
Read some accounts of the 1918 pandemic. It got THAT bad. If we have a true pandemic a la 1918, you will be better off staying at home and staying in bed than doing anything else. Remember, medical services cannot really do anything for you other than let you heal yourself with a virus. Antibiotics may help with secondary bacterial infections, but they do nothing against viruses. Tammiflu apparently helps, but I’d bet that runs out almost immediately.
Bed rest and hydration are about all that can be done until you heal yourself. And stay in bed several days after you start feeling better. Lots of flu victims died exerting themselves after feeling better back in 1918.
In hypothetical repeated trials, each consisting of 7 cases of a 7% lethal disease, you’d expect .93^7 or 60% of the trials to show no deaths. If you up the number of cases per trial to 14, you’d expect .93^14 or 36% to show no deaths.
OTOH, if you define a trial as a sequence of nonlethal cases terminated by a lethal case, the expected number of cases per trial is 1/.07 or 14.29.
Ack. You bring back horrid memories of Statistics class.
Thanks for the numbers, anyway.
I’m sure you will agree that 7 cases is too small a sample to decide whether the US flu is actually less deadly.
Yes, but so is 14, since you would still have a 36% "probability of rejecting the null hypothesis", as the formula has it.
That is, if you were presented with 14 cases of a disease, and decided that your criterion for determining that the mortality was less than 7% was "no deaths". Then you would say this about an actual 7% mortality disease 36% of the time.
Pneumonia is a disease that kills over 75K Americans every year, and it's totally preventable with a vaccination. I was hospitalized with it two time for a week each time, 30 days apart. It's pretty nasty.
I'm pretty sure the average Mexican has the average American beat on exercise, at least in the major cities. Walking is an everyday part of life in Mexico - You walk to work, walk to the bus stop or subway, walk to the market, walk to church, etc., etc.
Traffic congestion, lack of parking spaces and the expense of owning a motor vehicle have all contributed to this phenomenon - and ironically, may also be responsible for the flu's rapid spread in Mexico: While Americans remain relatively isolated from each other in their vehicles, Mexican buses and subways put people in close proximity. The real culprit for this outbreak may be public transportation.
WHy anyone would go to a turd world country like Mexico is way beyond me. Here is a country that is a dirty mess, with crime soaring and no real educated people, since those with any brains swam the river and are now working as lawn care specialists here.
After the war them we got half of Mexico, and we got the half with paved roads and a working sewer system.
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