Friday, October 17, 2014

EBOLA AND THE FLU

The news media is trying their best to whip the public into hysteria over the two nurses who apparently have come down with Ebola.  I listen to the Ebola news just long enough to hear if there is anything new.  There isn't except that the first nurse is now in good condition.  No one outside the medical profession in the U.S. has come down with Ebola, though I guess we await developments on the journey to Cleveland by the second nurse.  We may yet close all air traffic to the infected African countries.

In the meantime many hundreds of children have come down with envirovirus and one child has died, which is as many as have died from Ebola in the U.S., yet the new media seems immune to this development.  If you Google envirovirus, you only get reports up front from last September.  So far as I am concerned, Ebola in this country is a non-issue, as of now.

There is also the little matter of this year's flu epidemic, something I feel is far more important than Ebola (http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/flu-season-coming-early-and-hitting-hard/37803/):

"The H3N2 strain tends to affect the elderly population more severely and a season with predominant H3N2 activity typically leads to more hospitalization and deaths.
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Another difficulty with the flu vaccine is the time required for its mass production. Vaccine strains are chosen in advance, sometimes as early as February. While experts do their best to predict the pattern of the viral strains, often the strains contained in the vaccines end up having an almost insignificant effect on the flu season.
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So, although I did get a flu shot, I and many others, particularly at continuing care facilities, may still be exposed.  All it would take is someone in the kitchen handling food to come to work or a visitor with the flu and have it run rampant through the membership.  Time will tell what happens.  Symptoms of seasonal flu are:  fever, cough, runny nose, sore throat, and muscle aches.
The following is excerpted from a CDC report (http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/season/flu-season-2014-2015.htm):

Is there treatment for the flu?

Yes. If you get sick, there are drugs that can treat flu illness. They are called antiviral drugs and they can make your illness milder and make you feel better faster. They also can prevent serious flu-related complications, like pneumonia. For more information about antiviral drugs, visit Treatment (Antiviral Drugs).

What is antiviral resistance?

Antiviral resistance means that a flu virus has changed in such a way that antiviral drugs are less effective. Samples of flu viruses collected from around the United States and worldwide are studied at CDC to determine if they are becoming resistant to any of the FDA-approved influenza antiviral drugs.):

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