The Swine Flu paranoia seemed to disappear over the summer. But now that school is back and session and people are returning their stressful daily routines, the menacing flu strain has returned to keep us all washing our hands and avoiding coughs in fear. Some of us may have hoped that the pandemic went away during the summer, but now that it’s back we’re wondering if and when we might be safe to share water bottles again. The current pandemic is not the first case of wide spread swine flu in the U.S., the disease has hit us before. And perhaps if we look back at those past instances, see how long the pandemic lasted, what steps were taken against it, and how our leaders handled the situation we might get an idea as to when our current plight might be over.
For those who don’t know exactly what Swine Flu is, it is a strain of influenza known as H1N1. It gets its name as it has been known to be contacted from pigs. Pigs, unlike most animals can contract both human and avian influenza, and then they can recombine and transmit more treatment resistant strains of the virus. It cannot be contracted by eating pork, but instead by being around live infected pigs, or spread through the air by infected humans.
The first widespread case of what was believed to be Swine Flu occurred in 1918, although later research findings suggest that the strain may actually have been the result of birds rather than pigs. Recent estimates by the Center for Disease Control have found that somewhere between 30 and 50 million people died worldwide during the 1918-1919 outbreak, including an estimated 675,000 U.S. citizens. Doctors at first were unable to correctly diagnose the disease as influenza, as the new strain showed different symptoms and thus doctors often diagnosed it as the common cold. Once doctors did reckognize the strain as something new they began to look for a vaccine. But with little knowledge of treatment and antibiotics at the time, no vaccine was developed at the time. (Source: http://1918.pandemicflu.gov/the_pandemic/03.htm).
Near the end of 1919 the disease was mostly forgotten. Researchers attribute this to the fact that it was also the same year that World War II ended. America was eager to move on from probably anything associated with that time. It’s a troubling fact however that the influenza outbreak of that time killed more people that the actual war did. As I mentioned earlier somewhere near 30 and 50 million people died from the disease then, while the war killed 37 million people. 9.7 million of which were military personnel and about 6.8 were civilians. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties).
The next time Swine Flu turned up was in 1976 at Fort Dix, NJ. A recruit complained that he had been feeling tired and weak. He died the next day February 5th. 200 other recruits were reported to be infected, which told researchers that the disease could now be spread from person to person. Remembering the 1918 outbreak , President Gerald Ford was urged by health officials to distribute a vaccine. Around 24% of the U.S. population was treated with the vaccine. However the disease was never documented to have spread outside of Fort Dix, and the expected pandemic never arrived. The effort to distribute the vaccine was criticized when it was reported that 25 deaths were associated with the vaccine. These deaths made Americans wary of government provided flu-shots in the future, as it was also believed that the vaccine effort was more politically motivated and poorly researched. (Source: http://diseases-viruses.suite101.com/article.cfm/history_of_swine_flu_outbreaks. and http://www.howstuffworks.com/framed.htm?parent=swine-flu.htm&url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124087707128261555.html).
It was recently mentioned on a Fox News program, by pundit Michele Bachmann that the last time Swine Flu broke out it was during a democrat’s administration. This is not true however, she claimed it was under Jimmy Carter’s administration but it was actually Gerald Ford, a republican. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpZvchUUA2s I think you’ll find this “interesting”.
So far about 897 people have died from the current Swine Flu outbreak in the U.S. (Source: http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/updates/us/). The first confirmed case of the current Swine Flu surfaced on March 17th in Mexico. The first U.S. case was a 9-year-old-girl living in Imperial County, California in March 28th.(Source: http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/influenza/swineflu/news/may0109mexico.html).
Last May President Obama discussed the H1N1 virus in his weekly address: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6iNiOBw9rc&feature=player_embedded
In order to produce a safe vaccine the government has contracted several large pharmaceutical companies to work on the vaccine. Recently four of these companies have had their vaccines approved by F.D.A.. These companies are: Novartis Vaccines and Diagnosis Ltd., Snafoi Pasteur Icorporated, CSL Limited, and Medlmmune. Facts about these new vaccines can be read here: (Source: http://diseases-viruses.suite101.com/article.cfm/approved_vaccines_offer_protection_from_the_swin).
You can keep up on all Swine Flu updates at the Center for Disease Control’s website. http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/updates/us/
It seems that past instances of Swine Flu have lasted only about a year. The current strain has been around for about the last seven months. With four new vaccines on the way, we can at least begin to hope that the outbreak won’t reach true pandemic levels and that we’ll soon become more immune to the disease. But for the meantime we need to remember just how troublesome strains of flu have been in the past, so we don’t repeat any mistakes when dealing with our present plight.
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