Thanks for the information. I’ll try to find a link for that.
I thought a few others may be interested in what you’ve posted, too about the, IMHO, very plausible theories on this. [See 21Twelve’s post at #69]
There certainly are enough plausible scenarios to keep investigators busy for a while, not to mention the scientists researching the disease itself, and the doctors treating these patients, that’s for sure... Especially in Mexico where they just had an earthquake as well. Talk about stressful...
Here’s that web site that is tracking the events, with the first couple of paragraphs from their site explaining what their company (Veratect) does. And - their first observation on March 30th(!) of something going on.
The sickness in La Gloria, Mexico is discussed in later paragraphs at the site.
*******************************
Introduction
At Veratect, we operate two operations centers based in the United States (one in the Washington, DC area and one in Seattle, WA) that provide animal and human infectious disease event detection and tracking globally. Both operations centers are organizationally modeled after our National Weather Service using a distinct methodology inspired by the natural disaster and meteorology communities. Our analysts handle information in the native vernacular language and have been thoroughly trained in their discipline, which include cultural-specific interpretation of the information. We are currently partnered with 14 organizations that provide us with direct ground observations in 238 countries. We are a multi-source, near-real time event detection and tracking organization with years of experience in this discipline.
March 30
Veratect reported that a 47-year-old city attorney for Cornwall was hospitalized in a coma at Ottawa General Hospital following a recent trip to Mexico.
Okay - I got an updated page when I went to that Veratect site. Interesting stuff with respect to technology, keeping in touch with physicians around the world, etc.:
****************
As I left the operations center this evening, we faced at least 33 countries reporting suspect cases of swine flu, and 7 countries with laboratory-confirmed cases. Indeed, no one knows the true extent of this global crisis yet. Clearly, detection and tracking of swine flu events now is a monstrously complicated undertaking.
So, in partnership with Ozmosis, a leading physician’s social network in the United States, we have decided to take the social media revolution in biosurveillance to another level: connecting the Veratect early warning information directly to our nation’s physicians.
Previously I talked about our use of Twitter to disseminate near-real time information from 37 of the world’s languages about the current global swine flu crisis. The problem with Twitter, though, is you sacrifice speed for character length (limit= 140 characters). Well, thanks to Ozmosis, we have created a joint portal for Ozmosis’ physician community whereby they can have full access to Veratect’s detailed reports and be able to respond and add information.
This marks the advent of the 21st century in public health, where early warning information about the world is brought to the fingertips of the community physician in near-real time. It is our belief the power of social networking will more efficiently marry situational awareness with physicians’ daily lives and encourage better reporting of disease events that could negatively affect our communities, our country, and indeed, our world.
….Stay tuned for the world to change.
Ozmosis twitter feed : www.twitter.com/ozmosis