Run For Your Lives

The Spanish flu, bird flu, swine flu, H1N1 - all of these names have been used at one point in history, resent or otherwise, to describe a rouge flu that shows up in its victims suddenly and kills quickly. However, it was increasingly frustrating for me to see people react to the virus as if it were the Black Death. I felt there was no immediate threat when hearing about it and even less of a threat when I actually researched the topic - the first time anyway.

H1N1 first reared its ugly head in 1918 when there was a sudden outbreak of the Spanish flu which baffled the American Red Cross. The virus spread to nearly every part of the world, crossing oceans and continents alike. What was most worrisome about this outbreak was that it was hitting healthy young adult. By the end of the two year epidemic, somewhere between 50 and 100 million people died from the flu and one-third of the population as a whole were infected.

The next time we saw the virus it had a different name and slightly different genetic make-up - the avian flu or bird flu. It was said that the virus was the cause of over half of the flu infections and related deaths in 2006.

Now, it has yet another name, swine flu. This name was dubbed on the virus by the pubic media. Scientists and doctors still refer to it as H1N1.

The 2009 pandemic is, I must admit, troubling. No child has an immunity to it or adult for that matter. It is found, however, that adults over 60 do have a slight immunity to the virus. Yet, most intelligent people would ask, "what makes this different from any other seasonal flu?"

Well, H1N1 seems to contain strains of five different viruses: North American flu, Avian or bird flu, human flu, and two strains of flu from Asia and Europe. The virus causes cytokine storm, which is the overworking of the immune system, and the victim dies - young.

Despite popular belief, the flu did not originate from pig farms in Mexico. It seemed to have arrived in the U.S. by a human carrier from Asia and spread through Canada and Mexico through new human carriers.

Pigs have been affected by this virus for years. It has only been in resent times that it had transmitted itself to humans. Stains of H1N1 have been seen in birds in Chile in August of this year, months later than it had been affecting humans in the U.S.

According to ABC news, vaccines for the virus are now available. Yet, the U.S. Center for Disease Control anticipate a shortage of vaccines and providers are going to have to be prepared to prioritize their patients since there isn't enough to go around.

Shockingly enough, people are dying of this virus, according to one Ohio paper. A perfectly healthy 18-year-old freshman at Miami University died after being hospitalized three weeks ago with the virus. It seems that the swine flu is picking up spread and has mutated to something truly threatening. Steps need to be taken into account in order to protect the body from this virus. Just don't overdo it.