订阅
上一篇
|
Swine Flu
作者:edwar12345 日期:2009-05-07 11:36:46
Swine Flu
Swine Flu 1
1, New swine flu infections intensify travel fears 2
2, How Swine Flu impact economics 3
3, Great Debate 4
3.1 A vaccine needed for bad statistics 4
3.2 Swine flu: Walking the line between hyping and helping 7
4, FACTBOX:How swine flu spreads in humans 15
5, FACTBOX: Flu spreads silently, causes vague symptoms 16
6, FACTBOX: Making a flu vaccine can take months 17
7, Q&A: Swine flu: Is SARS a guide for the economic impact? 18
8, FACTBOX: Some facts about pandemic flu from the WHO 20
9, FACTBOX: Measures in North, South America against flu 21
10, FACTBOX: New flu strain is a genetic mix 23
1, New swine flu infections intensify travel fears
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - New swine flu infections were found around the world on Tuesday and the specter of a pandemic hit the travel industry as governments warned people to stay away from Mexico where 149 people have died.
The number of infections in the United States rose to 65, Canada has 13, and new cases were also confirmed in Israel and New Zealand.
The United States, Canada and the European Union are telling people to avoid non-essential travel to Mexico, and Cuba suspended all flights to and from Mexico for 48 hours.
Travel companies were also staying away. Carnival Cruises canceled stops at Mexican ports for three of its ships on Tuesday and Canadian tour operator Transat AT postponed flights to Mexico until June 1.
President Barack Obama asked the U.S. Congress for $1.5 billion to finance its response to the flu threat, and California declared a state of emergency, allowing it to deploy more resources to prevent new infections.
The World Health Organization said a pandemic -- a global outbreak of a serious new illness -- is not yet inevitable but that all countries should prepare for the worst, especially poorer developing nations.
"They really get hit disproportionately hard," said the WHO's acting assistant director-general Dr. Keiji Fukuda.
One of the mysteries of the outbreak is why the virus has killed scores of people in Mexico while the cases outside the country have been relatively mild and no one has died.
Experts say this may be simply a matter of where they have been looking to find it and officials say they expect to find deaths as the disease spreads.
A pandemic could snuff out fragile signs of economic recovery around the world as travel, trade and manufacturing output would all be hit.
The last flu pandemic was in 1968, when "Hong Kong" flu killed about 1 million people around the world.
Seven countries have confirmed cases of the swine flu and a dozen others have suspected infections.
Mexico City is at the center of the outbreak and many residents are staying in their homes while schools, churches, cinemas and restaurants have all been shut down.
Airline share prices declined again on Tuesday on fears that they could experience a sharp drop in traffic.
U.S., European and Asian stock markets all retreated despite positive U.S. consumer confidence data as flu fears and worries about American banks weighed on sentiment.
"Prices remain in a bit of a swoon as market participants fret that a potential influenza pandemic might prove fatal to the frail signs of recovery just beginning to show," said Mike Fitzpatrick, vice president at MF Global in New York.
Oil dropped almost 2 percent to below $50 a barrel and investors cut their exposure to riskier currencies.
The swine flu virus is not caught from eating pig meat products but several countries, led by Russia and China, banned U.S. pork imports. The EU said it has no plans to restrict pig meat products from the United States.
TRAVEL ALERTS
A barrage of travel warnings by foreign governments and travel firms threatened to batter Mexico's tourism industry, a main source of foreign currency for the country.
UK travel firms Thomson Holidays and First Choice decided to repatriate their customers from Mexico and cancel flights bound for Cancun, although most airlines continued to operate their services.
Many private companies took their own precautions, restricting travel to Mexico and other countries with confirmed cases. Honda Motor Co, which like most major auto makers has production facilities in Mexico, has suspended all global business travel until at least May 6.
Experts say that while it is impossible to stop the spread of the disease, efforts to slow its progress could buy crucial time for countries to procure essential drugs.
The WHO's Fukuda said a mild pandemic is possible but he also cautioned that the 1918 "Spanish" flu that killed tens of millions of people emerged from mild beginnings.
Worldwide, seasonal flu kills between 250,000 and 500,000 people in an average year.
In Mexico, people from company directors to couriers wore face masks while airlines checked passengers for flu symptoms.
The government has shut all schools across Mexico until at least May 6. Restaurants, bars, cinemas and even churches in the capital have been closed to limit new infections.
Residents rushed to stock up on food, water and surgical masks but the usually hectic city is otherwise very quiet.
Mexico says the first fatal case that alerted authorities to the strange new virus was in the southern state of Oaxaca but they have not yet found the origin of the outbreak.
2, How Swine Flu impact economics
(Reuters) - An outbreak of swine flu, which has killed up to 81 people in Mexico and infected others in the United States, Canada, Europe and New Zealand, could have a significant economic impact:
* The World Bank estimated in 2008, before the current global recession, that a flu pandemic could cost $3 trillion and result in a nearly 5 percent drop in world gross domestic product.
* The travel and tourism industries could be severely affected. Travelers may cancel trips and flights and many businesses have plans to limit travel if a pandemic starts.
* The Air Transport Association, an airline trade group, said so far there had been no decision to restrict travel between the United States and Mexico. WHO advises countries that restricting flights would be futile once a disease has started spreading. The U.S. Commerce Department says about 5.9 million U.S. citizens flew to Mexico in 2008.
* Pork producers in the United States and Mexico could see a drop in sales, but there is no evidence that any of the flu cases stemmed from contact with pigs. Prices for hogs fell on Friday to a two-month low in the United States. Mexico is the No. 2 market for U.S. pork, valued at $691.28 million. Russia said it had imposed curbs on meat imports from Mexico and the United Arab Emirates said it was considering banning imports of all pork products from Mexico and the United States.
* Some drug makers may benefit. Roche Holding AG's and Gilead Sciences Inc.'s Tamiflu and GlaxoSmithKline Plc's and Biota's Relenza are both recommended drugs for seasonal flu and have been shown to work against the new disease. Tamiflu is expected to be in greatest demand in a pandemic as it is a pill. Relenza must be inhaled.
* Leading flu vaccine manufacturers, including Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccines division of Sanofi-Aventis SA, Glaxo, Novartis AG and Baxter International Inc, said they were on standby to start the development of a vaccine, which could take months to prepare.
* Oil prices, already depressed by the global recession, could fall further if the outbreak hurts travel and economic activity.
3, Great Debate
April 28th, 2009
3.1 A vaccine needed for bad statistics
Post a comment (10)
By: Eric Auchard
Tags: General, flu outbreak, flu pandemic, inoculation, scary statistics, swine flu, The Great Debate, world health organisation
- Eric Auchard is a Reuters columnist. The views expressed are his own –
If you look no further than the latest headlines, you might think a worldwide flu pandemic was already underway with a very real threat to millions of lives.
While there are many unanswered questions early on in the outbreak of flu from Mexico, it is crucial to remember that the number of deaths and reported infections remain small — even if its spread across the globe has proved worryingly rapid.
While the infected need access to medical care and anti-viral drugs, the rest of the world needs an inoculation against scary statistics and misinformation.
The Internet Age allows facts and rumour to spread almost instantaneously. But knowing of outbreaks across the globe must not be confused with risks of catching the disease.
Already in this outbreak, Lebanon’s health minister has called for a halt to the national custom of greeting one another with kisses. Several countries including Russia and China have banned pork imports from Mexico and parts of the United States in the belief that meat could spread the flu.
So far, up to 149 are reported to have died of swine flu in Mexico. The World Health Organisation has upgraded the level of pandemic threat to four on a scale of six — sustained human-to-human transmission. Stage five signals an “imminent” pandemic.
However, influenza is a big killer every year, with or without a pandemic.
WHO estimates flu kills upward of 250,000 to 500,000 people year after year. “Normal” flu epidemics infect 3 to 5 million a year. Statistics are complicated by inconsistent reporting. Flu often leads to other ailments that end up being listed as the ultimate cause of death.
Flu’s typical victims are the elderly, the infirm or the young. The difference with swine flu outbreak in Mexico is that otherwise healthy adults aged 20-50 are vulnerable.
But so far the new swine flu death rates are lower than other recent pandemic scares, a report by Barclays Capital notes. The 2,200 swine flu infections reported have resulted in deaths in 7 percent of cases. Avian flu has killed 61 percent of the 421 people infected since 1997. The death rate from SARS was around 10 percent.
Outside Mexico, 50 infections have been reported in the United States, Canada, Israel, New Zealand, Spain and Scotland. But health experts are baffled that infections outside Mexico appear to be milder and have caused no deaths.
The world’s most recent flu pandemic 41 years ago was the 1968 Hong Kong outbreak, which claimed one million lives.
Historically, pandemics occur about three times a century. But like predictions of the next big earthquake, medical experts profess they have no idea when to expect the next pandemic.
Inevitably, comparisons end up turning back to the Spanish Flu of 1918-1920, which killed more than 50 million people, or 2.5 percent of the world’s population.
That scourge followed the massive troop movements of World War One at a time of poor communications and before the invention of penicillin and modern healthcare systems. Post-war censorship rules restricted access to news, which limited the ability of communities to make informed decisions to protect themselves against the spread of the flu.
The descent into a global pandemic is not inevitable. Air travel may spread the disease in its early stages, but modern communications and medicine can arm us to respond quickly as the disease evolves.
Post a comment (10) |
Share
| Trackback
Comments RSS
10 comments so far
April 28th, 2009 11:49 am GMT - Posted by Anthony
Eric is absolutely right.
The media must stop scaring people with numbers that in the big picture are meaningless.
Thank you Eric for putting some sanity to this.
April 28th, 2009 12:26 pm GMT - Posted by David
Finally, a journalist not succumbing to hysteria over this swine flu business. Thank you very much, sir, for an intelligent analysis of this viral outbreak. A shame other practitioners of the ‘media art’ still believe that ‘If it bleeds, it leads’.
April 28th, 2009 12:50 pm GMT - Posted by Johan Rengstedt
It is to early to declare a death rate of the swine flu. The 7 procent you state is based on uncertain information from mexico. WHO says only 7 deaths are confirmed to be caused by H1N1, or swine flu. The statistics are also based on the number of reported cases who are hospitilaised. The real number of infected could be alot higher in mexico, if you count people who havent sought medical treatment. This would dramaticaly lower the death rate. My point is that you are basing this percentage on really bad statistics.
April 28th, 2009 1:28 pm GMT - Posted by zenon
@”That scourge followed the massive troop movements of World War One at a time of poor communications and before the invention of penicillin and modern healthcare systems.”
What does penicillin have to do with viral influenza?? Do you wanted to say that now we are safer because we have antibiotics? Would be quite monumental ignorance.
April 28th, 2009 2:57 pm GMT - Posted by Kevin
Wow! If the rest of the media would refrain from using attention grabbing headlines and statistics, our lives would be much more free from media induced stress. Thank you.
April 28th, 2009 3:02 pm GMT - Posted by steve
Amen Eric! We’ve been talking amongst ourselves at work about just how much hype their is in this story — you’d think we were experiencing the 1918 Spanish Flu outbreak all over again…
April 28th, 2009 3:03 pm GMT - Posted by Ben
The difference between swine flu and SARs was how the virus was spread. Swine flu affects many more people more rapidly. Suppose you have an attack rate of just 10% and a case fatality rate of 1% (significantly lower than the 7% cited by Eric and this is possible if the denominator in Mexico’s numbers are much lower than estimated) in metropolitan area of 20m people. 2m will fall ill and 20,000 will die in that city alone. Lets not be too flippant about this.
April 28th, 2009 3:24 pm GMT - Posted by Peter
The worry concerning viruses that transfer from farm grown animals to humans and then from human to human has been greatly ignored by the media, in spite of warnings from public health officials for years that a terrible pandemic was not only possible, but inevitable. If anything, due to politics, governments around the world are being too conservative in dealing with this outbreak. When it comes to statistics it way too early to make any judgement about the percentage of deaths. People need to take this seriously and do the one thing that is most protctive and wash their hands every chance they get, at least for 25 to 50 seconds (try counting some time this is much longer than you think).
April 28th, 2009 3:39 pm GMT - Posted by Jim Hardy
While labled Swine Flu, this is a hybrid containing DNA from Avian Flu, but is aparently easily transmitable between humans. To try to say this is just another Flu bug is less than factual. Personaly I would take this out break seriously.
April 28th, 2009 4:30 pm GMT - Posted by David Buhner
An ignorant analysis predicated on the two mistaken beliefs that 7% is a low mortality rate and that waiting until the problem is obviously a serious problem, as indicated by the number of cases, is a safe plan.
The mortality rate in the 1918 flu pandemic was 2%. Multiply that by 50 million and see what you get. SARS and Avian influenza have thousands only or less. The growth rate in an influenza epiemic is exponential. Once you have lots of cases in your community you are guaranteed thousands of cases very soon. Do the math, read some history, read something about epidemic influenza, and learn.
April 27th, 2009
3.2 Swine flu: Walking the line between hyping and helping
Post a comment (35)
Posted by: Dean Wright
Tags: Full Disclosure, david schlesinger, Dean Wright, media, newspapers, swine flu
Dean Wright is Global Editor, Ethics, Innovation and News Standards. Any opinions are his own.
There’s nothing like a disease outbreak to highlight the value of the media in alerting and informing the public in the face of an emergency.
There’s also nothing like it to bring out some of our more excessive behavior, essentially shouting “Run for your lives! (but, whatever you do, stay tuned, keep reading the website and don’t forget to buy the paper!).”
An outbreak of swine flu, which has killed scores in Mexico and infected others in the United States, Canada, Europe and New Zealand, is already having an effect on markets and travel plans, in addition to the obvious impact on public health.
The impact on markets could become more significant in time, but the impact on the media was practically immediate.
Cable television programmers went into crisis mode and a look at newspaper front pages and website home pages around the world showed a range of responses, from the almost hysterical to the concerned and more measured.
In the New York Daily News: “SWINE FLU SPREADS!” (though it was played below a sports story on the New York Yankees losing to the Boston Red Sox).
In the New York Post: “HOG WILD!” (also playing second to the Yankees’ humiliation, but illustrated with a pig sucking on a thermometer).
In The Japan Times (using a Reuters story): “Swine flu in Mexico sparks global panic”
In the South China Morning Post (which certainly has experience in covering bird flu and SARS): “Asia on high alert for swine flu as airports step up checks.”
In The Guardian: “Swine flu: call for global action as outbreak spreads.”
In the Toronto Sun: “CALM URGED AS FLU FEARS GROW.”
Later Monday, after the European Union health commissioner advised Europeans to postpone nonessential travel to the United States and Mexico, The New York Times led its website with “Europe Warned on U.S. Travel,” with a deck reflecting transatlantic disagreement, “Flu Advisory Unwarranted, C.D.C. Says.”
The BBC website focused on the confirmation of swine flu cases in the UK, with extensive Q&A’s on the origins of the disease and how it spreads and contributions from readers who were dealing with disease (some of them medical professionals in Mexico).
Big, bad-news stories can mean surges in audiences for media outlets and they certainly raise the adrenalin level of editors and reporters. They offer the temptation to go to excess, but they also offer the opportunity for us be of priceless service to our customers, clients and readers.
The question for me is how we in the media make sure we report accurately and informatively on the story and its impact on the markets and consumers’ lives without minimizing and without sensationalizing it.
“This is the type of story where our goal to stay factual and keep perspective is essential to uphold,” says Reuters Editor-in-Chief David Schlesinger. “Our role is neither to trivialize nor to hype or scaremonger, but to describe accurately what is happening and put its implications in context.”
Reuters has focused a great deal of resources—rightly, given our customers and audience—on the implications for the markets and the impact on the global economic downturn.
On Monday afternoon, Reuters.com was leading with “Will global recovery catch the flu?” atop a package of stories on possible market scenarios, the EU travel warning and factboxes on health precautions and industries being affected. One story noted, not surprisingly, that travel and tourism stocks were in turmoil.
Reuters.com also featured a special coverage page with the latest news, accompanied by a sober presentation of “Swine Flu Facts.” There’s even an invitation to receive updates on Twitter. Call me a skeptic on Twitter, but 140 characters won’t do much to add context to the story. Still, no one ever said Twitter was about context and at least you can follow developments, whether or not you’re near a computer.
My Reuters colleagues—especially the ones working bravely and tirelessly in Mexico—are succeeding in upholding the goal of staying factual and keeping events in perspective. It’s our mission to provide the information and insight our audience and customers need to make intelligent decisions about their investments and their lives. As shown by the World Health Organization’s decision Monday to raise the pandemic alert to Level 4, there’s plenty of drama to report without adding to it.
The swine flu story is still in its early stages and it remains to be seen if this becomes one of the biggest stories of our time. Whatever happens, it won’t hurt us all to take a deep breath now.
Post a comment (35) |
Share
| Trackback
Comments RSS
35 comments so far
Previous | 2 | 1 | Next
April 29th, 2009
1:19 am GMT It is very unreasonable and aggravating that our media is hyping such a small threat. If 7 deaths happened, and they consider this an outbreak, then the hundreds of shootings in Harlem that kill thousands a year must be epidemic and we should all wear bulletproof vests, as their is no vaccine protecting from bullets. The day we have to walk around in blue masks is going to be a day when pigs fly, and that is not a pun. I’m dead serious. I find it laughable and quite amusing that they go to such extremes to scare people in coughing up their money. If anything is an epidermic, it’s the amount of stinkbugs flying around. I killed 6 today…and a seventh one was in the window, but I let it live to show my superiority lol.
- Posted by Zack
April 28th, 2009
11:43 pm GMT The concern with this is the high rate at which this is spreading. People keep saying that over 200,000 people are hospitalized in the U.S. per year with the flu, but keep in mind that this has all been taking place within the past couple of WEEKS. Flu pandemics grow very fast and change a lot, and this is a virus we have no vaccine for and know very little about. That’s why people are taking notice.
- Posted by clay
April 28th, 2009
11:23 pm GMT The first comment is right - bravo DEAN WRIGHT!! A glimmer of responsibility and intelligence afloat in a cesspool of media superlatives and hysteria. NOT ONE PERSON in ANY country with a real health care system has died from this flu. Stick to the actual facts as you promise Mr. Wright, and you will be working for the most professional media outlet on the planet. In comparison, the verbal sewage coming out of CNN is beyond belief. As another blogger noted — the outrageous speculation in the media can reasonably be viewed as an act of terrorism on the uninformed population.
- Posted by RJ Roland
April 28th, 2009
10:23 pm GMT last night - mainstream tv australia - swine flu “highly likely” to become a pandemic and “kill millions of people” the fear mongering is unbelievable. “deadly swine flu virus sweeps the world” but no one outside mexico has died,
- Posted by ausmoron
April 28th, 2009
9:21 pm GMT There is nothing to fear but fear itself… so cease the day! just be sure to wash your hands and cover your cough please.
- Posted by thinkdrink
April 28th, 2009
8:28 pm GMT I detect a bit of racism or elitism from those who claim that since the only deaths were in Mexico, then Americans or Europeans have nothing to fear. Do you think you are genetically superior to Mexicans? What makes you think this swine flu can’t kill you? Don’t let bravado fool you. This flu is serious. You don’t have immunity to it so gather as much information as you can and thank the news media that keeps us informed.
- Posted by Greg
April 28th, 2009
7:53 pm GMT Thanks Sharon. The Hype has really been irritating me. The only positive point is that headlines seem to have temporarily stopped switching four times a day between ’slight global recovery’ and ‘deepening global recession’. I was getting dizzy!
- Posted by Bill
April 28th, 2009
7:53 pm GMT Speaking of causing panic, Reuters is not innocent either.
This article states 149 dead. (published by Reuters)
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticN ews/idUSTRE53R5OF20090428
This article states 7 dead …large difference!
http://www.reuters.com/article/asiaCrisi s/idUSLS627574
Does Reuters have an Editor or is it free-lance and open to the public.
- Posted by Bryan
April 28th, 2009
7:28 pm GMT From a mathematical standpoint it certainly seems to behave like an epidemic. From a historical standpoint, we are overdue for an epidemic. Actually we are somewhat overdue for largescale extinction in species. It happens routinely. Regardless of how the story ends, at least we will not have to wait long for the outcome. My philosophy in this situation is, if I am going to go, I might aswell eat whatever I want. So that is what I am doing.
- Posted by Don
April 28th, 2009
6:48 pm GMT Whats important is the IF, if the swine flu will change and become a more aggressive against our immune systems.
- Posted by Kuta
April 28th, 2009
6:45 pm GMT I don’t envy any reporter or media producer right now; they are in a no-win situation. If this flu turns out to be nothing, they’ll be blamed for hyping. If it turns out to be a repeat of 1918, they’ll be blamed for not warning us sufficiently.
The truth is, we’re due for a pandemic according to 90 years of research on flu cycles. It’s going to happen. We’re all responsible for getting the facts, taking reasonable steps to prepare and then keeping ourselves informed as situations develop. I appreciate the media doing what they can to help us, but ultimately I have to take responsibility for my family and myself.
- Posted by Vanessa
April 28th, 2009
6:09 pm GMT We shall see in the next few weeks how the situation will develop. For the moment, I am frankly disappointed with the way a number of big media-houses decided to cover the facts. I did follows the news in the major Italian newspapers on the web. The most inappropriate title did belong to Repubblica, a supposedly well-respected venue. On Saturday 25th, they wrote “E’ pandemia”, which translate literary in “It’s pandemic”. As a matter of fact, the phone lines of the Italian Ministry of Health have been flooded with calls from people with flu-like symptoms, including soar throat, or people concerned with the safety of eating pork meat, something which has been declared to be safe over and over again. The situation is certainly serious, but the media must behave intelligently, because the damage of wrong information can be huge. Information should inform and, in such a delicate moment, it must not be crafted with the sole purpose of selling.
- Posted by Simone Severini
April 28th, 2009
5:44 pm GMT This reminds me of the salmonella “outbreak” that flew around the US over the past few months. I think the total of “confirmed” cases was approaching 1000. It’s a shame that they neglected to report that there are over 1,000,000 (yeah, that’s 6 zeros) cases reported each year, which is still a small percentage of general food poisoning cases reported. The media (sorry for the generalization) does way to much sensational crap from the local news to the international giants. “Dozen’s of people die, stayed tuned after the break and we’ll tell you where.”
- Posted by John Doe
April 28th, 2009
5:10 pm GMT The amount of fear and hype is over the top, how many of you are over 40 dont you remember this before?? and Tamiflu stock piles…. Donald Rumsfeld on the board….
And just in case the media cant report this properly, it is Mexico as of April 27, CONFIRMED 26 cases of infection with H1N1 virus, ANF THERE ARE ONLY 7 CONFIRMED DEATHS…. and INTERESTING not one other death reported in the WORLD. Check the facts yourself.. but the phamaceutical companies have increased their sale by 300%…
oh and lets not forget the quote from lloyds bank yesterday “Kenneth Broux, economist at Lloyds TSB. If the danger of a significant global outbreak proves limited, U.S. corporate earnings will reclaim their prominence in driving activity in currency markets. If it proves to be more serious, there will be more repatriation into dollar-denominated assets, he said.”
Wake up folks….
http://www.promedmail.org/pls/otn/f?p=24 00:1001:7626233442320714::NO::F2400_P100 1_BACK_PAGE,F2400_P1001_PUB_MAIL_ID:1000 ,77228
- Posted by sharon
April 28th, 2009
4:57 pm GMT As a praticing Internist, I am appaled at the frank hysteria that the newsmedia is creating. This irresponsible behavior is not unlike an act of terrorism. This may be the best example of awful reporting made even worse by substituting the desire for sensationalism for true fact- base reporting. I dread seeing what will be said by the media, particularly CNN (which has reached new lows), when the rush to get medication results in a shortage. The population needs to know of the issues and know that the disease is treatable but doesn’t need to frightened by all the hyperbole. BTW, how does one define the “scores” who have died? What co-morbidities may have an influence? Thanks for raising the question even if you may be contributing to the problem.
Posted by A practicing Internist.
April 28th, 2009
4:48 pm GMT If you are a student of the history of the 1918 Influenza, you can see the similarities that cause concern. I bought 30 5 gal jugs of water, vitamins, staples. Why not?
- Posted by Denese Jokela
April 28th, 2009
4:10 pm GMT Yet another sterling example why it is never a good idea to have unprotected sex with pigs…
or swines.
- Posted by phoenix1
April 28th, 2009
3:45 pm GMT Thanks Dean,
I’m glad there are people out there who are not buying into the hype. If you look at the cases of the people hospitalize during the flu season you will see that the CDC has recorded 200,000 Americans had to be hospitalize and 36,000 died from flu complications and this the average for a regular flu season. Knowing this it will be awhile before you see me walking around in a mask.
- Posted by Al
April 28th, 2009
3:42 pm GMT The media as usual are blowing this epidemic out of all proportion. I do not know of a single media organisation that I wouuld trust to report any story , however trivial or important, with anything approaching responsibility and sensibility. The only sensible thing to do I think is to accept that the media is run by a small number people who take great pleasure in alarming the vast majority.Much of the depression felt by many people at the moment can be blamed totally on the media.
- Posted by David Fawcett
April 28th, 2009
3:12 pm GMT Finally, an article about the human condition that doesn’t find it necessary to connect it to the economy. Humans evolved for millions of years without capitalism. If we’re lucky we might move forward without it.
A hundred or or so people die from the influenza and the media blitz’s is with coverage. I wish the “media” had more concern for the tens of thousands of children who die from preventable disease every day all for a lack of potable water. Where is that coverage? If we all new the cause of this condition there would be mass outrage. Or is it possible that since the poorest in the world have little electricity and no television there is no reason to broadcast their story. Besides that advertising market isn’t very lucrative.
When I pause to listen, I hear the devoutly religious express their belief that judgment day and destruction are at hand. Many agnostics and atheists have resigned themselves to humanity destroying itself and perhaps the planet along with them. I for one remain a little more hopeful. But if I am wrong then why have the influences of religion and logic left so many disinterested and unconcerned with the plight of our neediest brothers and sisters around the world?
- Posted by Anubis
April 28th, 2009
3:03 pm GMT Hi all,
I would rather like to be laughed at for being prepared and nothing happens than being laughed at for not being prepared and something happens.
See physorg.com for a good article on how to avoid catching or spreading the virus.
Take care all.
- Posted by Michel Tremblay
April 28th, 2009
2:41 pm GMT While media generally sensationalizes the stories it can capitalize readership gains on. Make no mistake about it, Influenza and other communicable diseases are a clear and present danger. Weather or not the current “Swine Flu” is another worldwide Pandemic or not, we should be vigilant regarding the spread of communicable diseases and constantly refine our techniques to prevent the spread of fast spreading and potentially deadly disease.
- Posted by DavidJ
April 28th, 2009
2:26 pm GMT I have been following the updates as Im due to fly out on the 6th May 2009 for a honeymoon, I have been informed by my holiday insurers that whilst the warning by the F/O is in place our insurance is all null and void if we travel. We were still wanting to go with a supply of Tamiflu tablets just in case, however now they are suspending flights. None of the people outside of Mexico have died, the European countries obviously have a better standard of health facilities and diet contributing to this, however if this virus affects the young and the old then if we carry it we may infect people less healthy than ourselves etc on our return… so that is a concern… I think that the media tends to make the situation worse but that is not helping the poor Mexicans who have lost their lives!
- Posted by kay robson
April 28th, 2009
2:02 pm GMT CNN International takes the cake for the most sensationalism with regards to this “crisis”.
Richard Quest - recently annointed CNN’s Expert on Economics - has been doomsaying the world economy of late. Now he has become the “Swine Flu Guru” and he is singlehandedly trying to scare the living h… out of anyone who happens to tune in. If the economy doesn’t get you, pig flu will!
I doubt that Ted Turner - who certainly was interested in commercial success - would have allowed this amount of sensationalism. It is truely shameful.
Quest should go back to his travel show: probably the only area where he has any expertise.
- Posted by Paul Spellswell
April 28th, 2009
1:34 pm GMT Lock yourself in your house and watch American Idol and Survivor on TV. Stock up on garlic and oil of oregano. Buy the time I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here comes on TV in the summer …you should be able to venture outside.
- Posted by Dr_Doom
April 28th, 2009
1:16 pm GMT My favourite so far is the BBC sending a TV crew to meet returning holidaymakers as they stepped off plane from Mexico. As a layman, I don’t _know_ that there’s a period when a person is infectious without showing symptoms (although I understand that’s pretty common with viruses), but at a time when we ought to be reducing opportunities for transmission rather than multiplying them, I thought it was an amusing touch.
- Posted by Ian Kemmish
April 28th, 2009
12:35 pm GMT This is ridiculous!! The real story here is how the media is trying to turn this into something big when it is not! Reuters and others: Please stick to reporting the news instead of creating it! A lot to do about nothing!
- Posted by Victoria
April 28th, 2009
11:39 am GMT Very good points sir. The media should also stop and think of the impact to our economy that they are having. By hyping the story so much, they cause the government to spend amounts of time and money responding. Considering that we have over 100 deaths every day due to car accidents, having a bunch of people sick with the flu shouldn’t even be on our radar. The CDC and other agencies will inform us if it does start getting out of hand. This story was hyped so much that the president actually had to be briefed and make a statement. Over 40 people getting the flu? Gimme a break. Let’s all get a bit more realistic, aay? We plain can’t afford this kind of sensationalism for ratings any more.
- Posted by Russ
April 28th, 2009
7:53 am GMT On a national talk radio broadcast this evening here in Honolulu we are told the flu media hype in America is a fear cover for the heating up investigations into torture -who’s- responsible news. It’s difficult for me to believe that, but I do know I have seen and listened to irresponsible reporting and turn to other than American sources of news for better clarity. Thanks Reuters!
- Posted by Kate paine
April 28th, 2009
5:50 am GMT it is due to media i was able to refresh my knowledge of swine flu.good job media.
- Posted by dr.avinash manwatkar.
April 28th, 2009
3:57 am GMT Chickenlegs, unless the title of the piece was rewritten, the author is correct. Media is a collective singular. “Is the media” is correct.
- Posted by David Pauls
April 28th, 2009
2:44 am GMT Thanks for your remarks; news organizations could be less hysterical and more restrained but I must be dreaming. But I read Reuters because television is trash and there’s very little outlets other than the Economist or The FT. Good work.
- Posted by Andrew Franks
April 28th, 2009
2:01 am GMT thanks for your balanced thoughts and perspective. i SO appreciate that. i’ve been living and breathing swine flu updates as i’m traveling to puerto vallarta in the morning… and the slants and facts leaving out key bits of information is annoying… also, when my friends and family are informed only by news sites that are reporting but also being scary about it, then i have to deal with them too!
it’s been a long weekend and my friend and i made the decision at the last minute today to go. we looked in to other destinations, but due to our nonrefundable ticket, high cost of other destinations should we take united up on their offer to change with no penalty, and plans later in the summer that will make it difficult (if not impossible, for me) to postpone this vacation, ultimately we are still going.
masks and all.
- Posted by sarah
April 28th, 2009
1:49 am GMT Firstly, media are ignorant in their reporting of important areas of Science. How many of your reporters have qualifications in Science? Secondly, you don’t invoke much confidence when you don’t know singular (is the medium) from plural (are the media), as demonstrated in your header.
- Posted by Chickenlegs1
April 28th, 2009
1:38 am GMT BRAVO DEAN WRIGHT!! A glimmer of responsibility and intelligence afloat in a cesspool of media superlatives and hysteria. NOT ONE PERSON in ANY country with a real health care system has died from this flu. Stick to the actual facts as you promise Mr. Wright, and you will be working for the most best media outlet on the planet.
- Posted by TJ Reader
4, FACTBOX:How swine flu spreads in humans
Sun Apr 26, 2009 9:51pm EDT
Reuters) - A new strain of influenza is infecting people in Mexico and the United States and may have killed up to 60 people in Mexico, global health officials said on Friday.
The CDC has analyzed samples of the H1N1 virus from some of the U.S. patients, all of whom have recovered, and said it is a never-before-seen mixture of viruses from swine, birds and humans.
Here are some facts from the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention about how swine flu spreads in humans:
* Swine flu viruses typically sicken pigs, not humans. Most cases occur when people come in contact with infected pigs or contaminated objects moving from people to pigs.
* Pigs can catch human and avian or bird flu. When flu viruses from different species infect pigs, they can mix inside the pig and new, mixed viruses can emerge.
* Pigs can pass mutated viruses back to humans and they can be passed from human to human. Transmission among humans is thought to occur in the same way as seasonal flu -- by touching something with flu viruses and then touching their mouth or nose, and through coughing or sneezing.
* Symptoms of swine flu in people are similar to those of seasonal influenza -- sudden fever, coughing, muscle aches and extreme fatigue. This new strain also appears to cause more diarrhea and vomiting than normal flu.
* Vaccines are available to be given to pigs to prevent swine influenza. There is no vaccine to protect humans from swine flu although the CDC is formulating one. The seasonal influenza vaccine may help provide partial protection against swine H3N2, but not swine H1N1 viruses, like the one circulating now.
* People cannot catch swine flu from eating pork or pork products. Cooking pork to an internal temperature of 160 degrees Fahrenheit (71 degrees Celsius) kills the swine flu virus as it does other bacteria and viruses.
5, FACTBOX: Flu spreads silently, causes vague symptoms
Mon Apr 27, 2009 9:41am EDT
Q+A: World watching Mexico swine flu virus
Sunday, 26 Apr 2009 09:51pm EDT
FACTBOX: New flu strain is a genetic mix
Friday, 24 Apr 2009 05:33am EDT
(Reuters) - A new strain of influenza has killed 103 people in Mexico and spread across North America and possibly as far afield as Spain and New Zealand. No one is certain about how virulent the virus is -- meaning how severe the symptoms are -- or what its patterns of transmission are.
Here are some facts about influenza in general, its symptoms and how it is transmitted.
* "Influenza" refers to a family of viruses that include influenza A, influenza B and influenza C.
* Symptoms include sudden onset of fever, muscle aches, headaches, cough and sometimes diarrhea and vomiting. Flu feels far more severe than a cold.
* People can pass flu along before they feel ill and after they feel better. Flu viruses can be found not only in nasal secretions but in fecal matter.
* The "incubation period" for flu -- the time it takes from infection before symptoms develop -- is usually about 24 to 48 hours, although it is not clear what the case is for this new H1N1 swine flu virus.
* The virus can be transmitted on particles of saliva and mucus when people cough and sneeze close to one another. Experts generally agree that three feet (1 meter) is the distance these particles can travel between people.
* Flu viruses can also live for days or even weeks on dry surfaces. More and more evidence shows that people very frequently infect themselves by touching a contaminated surface, such as a computer keyboard, and then touching the nose, eyes or mouth.
* Flu viruses evolve, or mutate, constantly. New strains emerge regularly, which is why the annual flu vaccine must be reformulated every year.
* Flu viruses are believed all to originate in animals. Little changes or mutations in the DNA can allow them to more easily infect people. Some cause more serious symptoms than others.
* Flu viruses are frequently deadly. The World Health Organization estimates that flu kills 250,000 to 500,000 people in a normal year, more during pandemics, which last occurred in 1968, 1957 and 1918.
* Flu can kill directly by causing pneumonia, and it can also make people more vulnerable to bacterial infections that also kill.
6, FACTBOX: Making a flu vaccine can take months
Sun Apr 26, 2009 9:51pm EDT
(Reuters) - The U.N. World Health Organization and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been collecting samples of the new H1N1 swine flu virus to make a new vaccine in case it is needed.
Following are some facts about influenza vaccines.
* The WHO and CDC prepare samples of virus to give to industrial makers.
* These samples must be grown in specially produced chicken eggs. The virus is then purified and made into vaccines, a process that takes months.
* At least 20 companies make flu vaccines including Sanofi Pasteur, Australia's CSL Ltd, GlaxoSmithKline Plc, Novartis AG, Baxter and nasal spray maker MedImmune, acquired by AstraZeneca Plc.
* Experts agree the current process for making vaccines is clumsy and outdated, but new and more efficient technologies are still a few years away.
* WHO and CDC experts are trying to decide if a new vaccine for the H1N1 swine flu strain is needed, or perhaps if a fourth element could be added to the seasonal flu vaccine mix for next September.
* The health agencies also had been considering adding some vaccines against H5N1 avian influenza, which occasionally infects people and is also considered a major pandemic threat.
* Tests show the H1N1 component of the current seasonal flu vaccine does not protect against the new strain.
* Consulting firm Oliver Wyman found that drug companies would need four years to meet global demand for vaccines if a pandemic broke out today, but new technology could significantly boost production by 2014.
* Currently, drug makers could make up to 2.5 billion doses of pandemic vaccines in one year, meaning it would take four years to meet global demand, Oliver Wyman found. In a best-case scenario, they could make 7.7 billion doses in 1.5 years.
* Compounds called adjuvants can be used to boost a vaccine's effectiveness, so it could be diluted and used in more people.
* Current global demand for seasonal influenza vaccine is about 500 million doses a year.
* The CDC recommends that 261 million Americans -- 85 percent of the population -- should be vaccinated against flu. A RAND Corp. study in December showed that only about a third of those who should have did get the vaccine.
7, Q&A: Swine flu: Is SARS a guide for the economic impact?
Mon Apr 27, 2009 9:41am EDT
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - As fears grow about whether a new dangerous strain of swine flu will develop into a global pandemic and affect economies, Asia can look to the 2003 SARS epidemic for pointers on what might happen.
In 2003, Asia was feeling the effects of the October 2002 Bali bombings, a tentative world recovery was underway from the bursting of the technology bubble and there was conflict in Iraq.
Likewise today, other factors, such as job and income losses from the credit crisis, could make it difficult to isolate the effects of any swine flu outbreak.
But SARS provides the last main point of reference in how the world dealt with a pandemic that was spread by human-to-human contact and how it affected economies and markets.
Here are some questions and answers about the severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, crisis:
WHAT WAS THE IMPACT OF SARS ON ASIA?
The World Health Organization declared SARS a pandemic in March 2003. By June of that year, it had lifted an advisory warning against traveling to SARS affected countries.
There were some 8,000 cases and close to 800 deaths. The most visible impact of SARS was on tourism and consumption patterns in the most affected countries: Singapore, Hong Kong, China and Malaysia, although others in the region also suffered. Singapore and Hong Kong slipped into recession in 2003.
Other countries affected by SARS included Canada, South Africa, Sweden, France and the United States. Deaths were reported in Asia, Canada, France and South Africa.
According to the Asian Development Bank, the cost of SARS in terms of lost GDP in nominal terms for East and Southeast Asia was about $18 billion or 0.6 percentage points of 2003
GDP.
The main channels through which SARS affected economies was through tourist arrivals. ADB data shows a 20-70 percent drop on tourist arrivals in April 2003 in the most affected economies, while others in Asia also saw declines of 15-35 percent, leading to estimated tourism revenue losses of nearly $15 billion or 0.5 percent of GDP.
SARS-affected economies experienced drops in retail sales growth in the order of 5-10 percent in early 2003. Hong Kong's economy shrank 2.6 percent and Singapore's by 2 percent in the first half of 2003. Overall growth was ironically helped by a simultaneous decline in imports and investment.
HOW DID MARKETS REACT TO SARS?
Market reaction was relatively muted, possibly because the panic over SARS lasted for just about one quarter and governments reacted quickly. Continued...
The Singapore dollar fell nearly 4 percent against the U.S. dollar between the end of January 2003 and the end of April 2003, but it then rallied.
MCSI's emerging Asia-ex-Japan index fell around 14 percent between January and March 2003. From the end of March it rallied by 56 percent during the rest of the year
Hong Kong's benchmark index shed 18 percent of its value between December 2002 and April 2003, bottoming at a 4-year low.
For a graphic on economic and market impact, click here:
here
WHAT ECONOMIC MEASURES WERE IMPLEMENTED IN RESPONSE TO
SARS?
China had price controls for SARS-related drugs, tax waivers for affected industries such as hotels, interest subsidies for tourism sectors.
Hong Kong's government announced a package of measures worth around 1 percent of GDP, which included tax reductions and loan guarantees. Singapore likewise had a SARS relief package including measures for airlines. It also eased monetary policy in July 2003 by a one-off devaluation of the currency. Malaysia's package was close to 2 percent of GDP and included cheaper loans, support for job training and tourism sectors.
IS THE ECONOMIC SITUATION DIFFERENT NOW?
The starting point for most economies is much lower, since the credit crisis has already plunged a lot of the developed world and countries such as Singapore, Japan and Hong Kong into recession.
Tourism received a big boost between 2004 and 2007 and is now a much bigger contributor to growth, with revenues comprising between 6 and 9 percent of GDP in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore.
LINKS
> After SARS, bird flu, Asia wary of new virus..
> Global fears over flu outbreak, over 100 dead.
> Asia stocks, commodities hit by flu fears.....
8, FACTBOX: Some facts about pandemic flu from the WHO
(Reuters) - The U.N. World Health Organization has said it is closely monitoring an outbreak of a new deadly strain of swine flu in Mexico and the United States.
The human-to-human spread of the virus has raised fears of a flu pandemic. The WHO has said it needs more information before it changes its pandemic alert level, currently at three on a scale of one to six.
Here are some facts about pandemic influenza from the WHO's website http:/www.who.int/csr/disease/influenza/pandemic10things/en/
* Flu pandemics are caused by new flu viruses that adapt into strains that become contagious between humans.
* Flu pandemics occurred three times in the past century: the Hong Kong flu in 1968, the Asian flu in 1957 and the Spanish flu of 1918.
* Experts agree that another pandemic could come at any time and could involve any one of a number of new strains of flu. Most eyes have been on the H5N1 strain of avian flu that first infected people in Hong Kong in 1997. Since 2003 it has infected 421 people in 15 countries and killed 257 of them.
* To be declared a pandemic strain, a virus must be new to humans, cause serious illness, be easily transmitted from one person to another, and sustain that transmission efficiently.
* All countries will be affected once a fully contagious pandemic virus emerges. Previous pandemics circled the globe in six to nine months, even before international air travel was common. Today, a virus could reach all continents in weeks.
* Widespread illness will occur. Most people will have no immunity to the pandemic virus. A substantial percentage of the world's population will need medical care, but few countries have enough staff, facilities, equipment and hospital beds.
* Supplies of vaccines and antiviral drugs will be inadequate. Many developing countries will have no access to vaccines.
* Many people will die. Based on the 1957 pandemic, the WHO conservatively estimates 2 million to 7.4 million people may die during the next outbreak, but says all estimates are speculative, and will depend on how many people become infected and the virulence of the virus, among other factors.
* Economic and social disruption will be great. High rates of worker absenteeism will impair services like power, transportation and communications.
* Every country must be prepared. The WHO has issued a series of recommended responses to the pandemic threat.
* The WHO will alert the world when the pandemic threat increases, working closely with governments and public health organizations on surveillance. WHO experts say it is too soon now to declare another pandemic.
9, FACTBOX: Measures in North, South America against flu
Tue Apr 28, 2009 4:03pm EDT
(Reuters) - Governments across North and South America took measures to avert a pandemic as the new swine flu virus spread from Mexico.
MEXICO
* In Mexico, the center of the outbreak where 149 people were reported to have died, schools throughout the country have been closed until May 6.
* The Mexican government issued an emergency decree that gives it the power to isolate sick people, enter homes or workplaces and regulate air, sea and land transportation to try and stop further infection.
* Congress was to meet in a closed-door session on Tuesday to consider measures.
* Mexico City authorities shut bars, restaurants, cinemas, gyms and even churches and made soccer teams play in empty stadiums to prevent the disease's spread. Many offices told workers to stay home but traffic remained heavy.
* The government said it had $450,000 available to fight the flu, and the World Bank offered $205 million in loans.
UNITED STATES
* In the United States, where all 52 cases reported have been mild, the government declared a public health emergency. President Barack Obama said it was a "precautionary tool" that would give health officials the resources needed to respond quickly and effectively.
* U.S. health officials advised Americans to avoid "non-essential" trips to Mexico and announced steps to release some of the U.S. stockpiles of the anti-flu drugs Tamiflu and Relenza.
* Local authorities were told to plan for possible school closures and anyone with symptoms was urged to stay at home.
* Officials said they were not testing air travelers from Mexico for the virus but the CDC was preparing a "yellow card" for travelers explaining flu symptoms and precautions to take.
* The U.S. Embassy in Mexico City said it would suspend visa and nonemergency services for U.S. citizens in the city.
* Several major U.S. airlines were allowing customers to change travel plans to Mexico without any fee or penalty.
CANADA
* After six cases were confirmed in Canada, all involving only mild illness, the government said it was increasing its surveillance for possible new cases and urged people to take precautions like frequent hand washing. Continued...
* Canada advised against non-essential travel to Mexico.
* Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said the government would provide extra health funding if needed, but for the time being it was a question of monitoring the situation.
BRAZIL
* Officials are screening passengers on flights from the United States, Mexico and Canada for flu symptoms and placed an order for 100,000 surgical masks to be distributed at airports.
CHILE
* Officials installed a fever scanner in the airport to screen passengers from Mexico and the United States and called on citizens to avoid travel to countries with a flu risk.
COLOMBIA
* The government declared a disaster situation as a preventive measure, providing funds for increased monitoring of possible cases and clearing the way for purchases of medicines and gear such as surgical masks.
* The government recommended people suspend trips to Mexico, California and Texas.
VENEZUELA
* Venezuela recommended people avoid travel to Mexico and the United States and stepped up sanitary control at airports.
CUBA
* Cubana Airlines canceled its Havana to Mexico City flight and officials were monitoring passengers arriving from Mexico.
ECUADOR
Ecuador banned imports of pigs and pork products from the United States and Mexico as a precaution. No cases reported.
ARGENTINA, BOLIVIA, PANAMA, PERU, URUGUAY
* Officials checked for people with flu symptoms arriving from Mexico and other countries including the United States where cases have been confirmed.
(Compiled by World Desk Americas and Fiona Ortiz in Buenos Aires; Editing Anthony Boadle)
10, FACTBOX: New flu strain is a genetic mix
Sun Apr 26, 2009 9:51pm EDT
(Reuters) - A deadly swine flu never seen before has broken out in Mexico, killing at least 16 people and raising fears of a possible pandemic. World Health Organization officials said the flu has killed about 60 Mexicans.
Here are some facts about the virus and flu viruses in general:
* The World Health Organization has confirmed at least some of the cases are a never-before-seen strain of influenza A virus, carrying the designation H1N1.
* Although it's called swine flu, this new strain is not infecting pigs and has never been seen in pigs. The threat is person to person transmission.
* It is genetically different from the fully human H1N1 seasonal influenza virus that has been circulating globally for the past few years. The new flu virus contains DNA typical to avian, swine and human viruses, including elements from European and Asian swine viruses.
* The World Health Organization is concerned but says it is too soon to change the threat level warning for a pandemic-- a global epidemic of a new and dangerous flu.
* When a new strain of flu starts infecting people, and when it acquires the ability to pass from person to person, it can spark a pandemic. The last pandemic was in 1968 and killed about a million people.
* Seven people in the United States have been diagnosed with the new strain. All have recovered, but the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expects more cases.
* Flu viruses mutate constantly, which is why the flu vaccine is changed every year, and they can swap DNA in a process called reassortment. Most animals can get flu, but viruses rarely pass from one species to another.
* From December 2005 through February 2009, 12 cases of human infection with swine influenza were confirmed. All but one person had contact with pigs. There was no evidence of human-to-human transmission in those cases.
* Symptoms of swine flu in people are similar to those of seasonal influenza -- sudden onset of fever, coughing, muscle aches and extreme tiredness. Swine flu appears to cause more diarrhea and vomiting than normal flu.
* Seasonal flu kills between 250,000 and 500,000 people globally in an average year.
* In 1976 a new strain of swine flu started infecting people and worried U.S. health officials started widespread vaccination. More than 40 million people were vaccinated. But several cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a severe and sometime fatal condition that can be linked to some vaccines, caused the U.S. government to stop the program. The incident led to widespread distrust of vaccines in general.
(Reporting by Maggie Fox)
Swine Flu 1
1, New swine flu infections intensify travel fears 2
2, How Swine Flu impact economics 3
3, Great Debate 4
3.1 A vaccine needed for bad statistics 4
3.2 Swine flu: Walking the line between hyping and helping 7
4, FACTBOX:How swine flu spreads in humans 15
5, FACTBOX: Flu spreads silently, causes vague symptoms 16
6, FACTBOX: Making a flu vaccine can take months 17
7, Q&A: Swine flu: Is SARS a guide for the economic impact? 18
8, FACTBOX: Some facts about pandemic flu from the WHO 20
9, FACTBOX: Measures in North, South America against flu 21
10, FACTBOX: New flu strain is a genetic mix 23
1, New swine flu infections intensify travel fears
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - New swine flu infections were found around the world on Tuesday and the specter of a pandemic hit the travel industry as governments warned people to stay away from Mexico where 149 people have died.
The number of infections in the United States rose to 65, Canada has 13, and new cases were also confirmed in Israel and New Zealand.
The United States, Canada and the European Union are telling people to avoid non-essential travel to Mexico, and Cuba suspended all flights to and from Mexico for 48 hours.
Travel companies were also staying away. Carnival Cruises canceled stops at Mexican ports for three of its ships on Tuesday and Canadian tour operator Transat AT postponed flights to Mexico until June 1.
President Barack Obama asked the U.S. Congress for $1.5 billion to finance its response to the flu threat, and California declared a state of emergency, allowing it to deploy more resources to prevent new infections.
The World Health Organization said a pandemic -- a global outbreak of a serious new illness -- is not yet inevitable but that all countries should prepare for the worst, especially poorer developing nations.
"They really get hit disproportionately hard," said the WHO's acting assistant director-general Dr. Keiji Fukuda.
One of the mysteries of the outbreak is why the virus has killed scores of people in Mexico while the cases outside the country have been relatively mild and no one has died.
Experts say this may be simply a matter of where they have been looking to find it and officials say they expect to find deaths as the disease spreads.
A pandemic could snuff out fragile signs of economic recovery around the world as travel, trade and manufacturing output would all be hit.
The last flu pandemic was in 1968, when "Hong Kong" flu killed about 1 million people around the world.
Seven countries have confirmed cases of the swine flu and a dozen others have suspected infections.
Mexico City is at the center of the outbreak and many residents are staying in their homes while schools, churches, cinemas and restaurants have all been shut down.
Airline share prices declined again on Tuesday on fears that they could experience a sharp drop in traffic.
U.S., European and Asian stock markets all retreated despite positive U.S. consumer confidence data as flu fears and worries about American banks weighed on sentiment.
"Prices remain in a bit of a swoon as market participants fret that a potential influenza pandemic might prove fatal to the frail signs of recovery just beginning to show," said Mike Fitzpatrick, vice president at MF Global in New York.
Oil dropped almost 2 percent to below $50 a barrel and investors cut their exposure to riskier currencies.
The swine flu virus is not caught from eating pig meat products but several countries, led by Russia and China, banned U.S. pork imports. The EU said it has no plans to restrict pig meat products from the United States.
TRAVEL ALERTS
A barrage of travel warnings by foreign governments and travel firms threatened to batter Mexico's tourism industry, a main source of foreign currency for the country.
UK travel firms Thomson Holidays and First Choice decided to repatriate their customers from Mexico and cancel flights bound for Cancun, although most airlines continued to operate their services.
Many private companies took their own precautions, restricting travel to Mexico and other countries with confirmed cases. Honda Motor Co, which like most major auto makers has production facilities in Mexico, has suspended all global business travel until at least May 6.
Experts say that while it is impossible to stop the spread of the disease, efforts to slow its progress could buy crucial time for countries to procure essential drugs.
The WHO's Fukuda said a mild pandemic is possible but he also cautioned that the 1918 "Spanish" flu that killed tens of millions of people emerged from mild beginnings.
Worldwide, seasonal flu kills between 250,000 and 500,000 people in an average year.
In Mexico, people from company directors to couriers wore face masks while airlines checked passengers for flu symptoms.
The government has shut all schools across Mexico until at least May 6. Restaurants, bars, cinemas and even churches in the capital have been closed to limit new infections.
Residents rushed to stock up on food, water and surgical masks but the usually hectic city is otherwise very quiet.
Mexico says the first fatal case that alerted authorities to the strange new virus was in the southern state of Oaxaca but they have not yet found the origin of the outbreak.
2, How Swine Flu impact economics
(Reuters) - An outbreak of swine flu, which has killed up to 81 people in Mexico and infected others in the United States, Canada, Europe and New Zealand, could have a significant economic impact:
* The World Bank estimated in 2008, before the current global recession, that a flu pandemic could cost $3 trillion and result in a nearly 5 percent drop in world gross domestic product.
* The travel and tourism industries could be severely affected. Travelers may cancel trips and flights and many businesses have plans to limit travel if a pandemic starts.
* The Air Transport Association, an airline trade group, said so far there had been no decision to restrict travel between the United States and Mexico. WHO advises countries that restricting flights would be futile once a disease has started spreading. The U.S. Commerce Department says about 5.9 million U.S. citizens flew to Mexico in 2008.
* Pork producers in the United States and Mexico could see a drop in sales, but there is no evidence that any of the flu cases stemmed from contact with pigs. Prices for hogs fell on Friday to a two-month low in the United States. Mexico is the No. 2 market for U.S. pork, valued at $691.28 million. Russia said it had imposed curbs on meat imports from Mexico and the United Arab Emirates said it was considering banning imports of all pork products from Mexico and the United States.
* Some drug makers may benefit. Roche Holding AG's and Gilead Sciences Inc.'s Tamiflu and GlaxoSmithKline Plc's and Biota's Relenza are both recommended drugs for seasonal flu and have been shown to work against the new disease. Tamiflu is expected to be in greatest demand in a pandemic as it is a pill. Relenza must be inhaled.
* Leading flu vaccine manufacturers, including Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccines division of Sanofi-Aventis SA, Glaxo, Novartis AG and Baxter International Inc, said they were on standby to start the development of a vaccine, which could take months to prepare.
* Oil prices, already depressed by the global recession, could fall further if the outbreak hurts travel and economic activity.
3, Great Debate
April 28th, 2009
3.1 A vaccine needed for bad statistics
Post a comment (10)
By: Eric Auchard
Tags: General, flu outbreak, flu pandemic, inoculation, scary statistics, swine flu, The Great Debate, world health organisation
- Eric Auchard is a Reuters columnist. The views expressed are his own –
If you look no further than the latest headlines, you might think a worldwide flu pandemic was already underway with a very real threat to millions of lives.
While there are many unanswered questions early on in the outbreak of flu from Mexico, it is crucial to remember that the number of deaths and reported infections remain small — even if its spread across the globe has proved worryingly rapid.
While the infected need access to medical care and anti-viral drugs, the rest of the world needs an inoculation against scary statistics and misinformation.
The Internet Age allows facts and rumour to spread almost instantaneously. But knowing of outbreaks across the globe must not be confused with risks of catching the disease.
Already in this outbreak, Lebanon’s health minister has called for a halt to the national custom of greeting one another with kisses. Several countries including Russia and China have banned pork imports from Mexico and parts of the United States in the belief that meat could spread the flu.
So far, up to 149 are reported to have died of swine flu in Mexico. The World Health Organisation has upgraded the level of pandemic threat to four on a scale of six — sustained human-to-human transmission. Stage five signals an “imminent” pandemic.
However, influenza is a big killer every year, with or without a pandemic.
WHO estimates flu kills upward of 250,000 to 500,000 people year after year. “Normal” flu epidemics infect 3 to 5 million a year. Statistics are complicated by inconsistent reporting. Flu often leads to other ailments that end up being listed as the ultimate cause of death.
Flu’s typical victims are the elderly, the infirm or the young. The difference with swine flu outbreak in Mexico is that otherwise healthy adults aged 20-50 are vulnerable.
But so far the new swine flu death rates are lower than other recent pandemic scares, a report by Barclays Capital notes. The 2,200 swine flu infections reported have resulted in deaths in 7 percent of cases. Avian flu has killed 61 percent of the 421 people infected since 1997. The death rate from SARS was around 10 percent.
Outside Mexico, 50 infections have been reported in the United States, Canada, Israel, New Zealand, Spain and Scotland. But health experts are baffled that infections outside Mexico appear to be milder and have caused no deaths.
The world’s most recent flu pandemic 41 years ago was the 1968 Hong Kong outbreak, which claimed one million lives.
Historically, pandemics occur about three times a century. But like predictions of the next big earthquake, medical experts profess they have no idea when to expect the next pandemic.
Inevitably, comparisons end up turning back to the Spanish Flu of 1918-1920, which killed more than 50 million people, or 2.5 percent of the world’s population.
That scourge followed the massive troop movements of World War One at a time of poor communications and before the invention of penicillin and modern healthcare systems. Post-war censorship rules restricted access to news, which limited the ability of communities to make informed decisions to protect themselves against the spread of the flu.
The descent into a global pandemic is not inevitable. Air travel may spread the disease in its early stages, but modern communications and medicine can arm us to respond quickly as the disease evolves.
Post a comment (10) |
Share
| Trackback
Comments RSS
10 comments so far
April 28th, 2009 11:49 am GMT - Posted by Anthony
Eric is absolutely right.
The media must stop scaring people with numbers that in the big picture are meaningless.
Thank you Eric for putting some sanity to this.
April 28th, 2009 12:26 pm GMT - Posted by David
Finally, a journalist not succumbing to hysteria over this swine flu business. Thank you very much, sir, for an intelligent analysis of this viral outbreak. A shame other practitioners of the ‘media art’ still believe that ‘If it bleeds, it leads’.
April 28th, 2009 12:50 pm GMT - Posted by Johan Rengstedt
It is to early to declare a death rate of the swine flu. The 7 procent you state is based on uncertain information from mexico. WHO says only 7 deaths are confirmed to be caused by H1N1, or swine flu. The statistics are also based on the number of reported cases who are hospitilaised. The real number of infected could be alot higher in mexico, if you count people who havent sought medical treatment. This would dramaticaly lower the death rate. My point is that you are basing this percentage on really bad statistics.
April 28th, 2009 1:28 pm GMT - Posted by zenon
@”That scourge followed the massive troop movements of World War One at a time of poor communications and before the invention of penicillin and modern healthcare systems.”
What does penicillin have to do with viral influenza?? Do you wanted to say that now we are safer because we have antibiotics? Would be quite monumental ignorance.
April 28th, 2009 2:57 pm GMT - Posted by Kevin
Wow! If the rest of the media would refrain from using attention grabbing headlines and statistics, our lives would be much more free from media induced stress. Thank you.
April 28th, 2009 3:02 pm GMT - Posted by steve
Amen Eric! We’ve been talking amongst ourselves at work about just how much hype their is in this story — you’d think we were experiencing the 1918 Spanish Flu outbreak all over again…
April 28th, 2009 3:03 pm GMT - Posted by Ben
The difference between swine flu and SARs was how the virus was spread. Swine flu affects many more people more rapidly. Suppose you have an attack rate of just 10% and a case fatality rate of 1% (significantly lower than the 7% cited by Eric and this is possible if the denominator in Mexico’s numbers are much lower than estimated) in metropolitan area of 20m people. 2m will fall ill and 20,000 will die in that city alone. Lets not be too flippant about this.
April 28th, 2009 3:24 pm GMT - Posted by Peter
The worry concerning viruses that transfer from farm grown animals to humans and then from human to human has been greatly ignored by the media, in spite of warnings from public health officials for years that a terrible pandemic was not only possible, but inevitable. If anything, due to politics, governments around the world are being too conservative in dealing with this outbreak. When it comes to statistics it way too early to make any judgement about the percentage of deaths. People need to take this seriously and do the one thing that is most protctive and wash their hands every chance they get, at least for 25 to 50 seconds (try counting some time this is much longer than you think).
April 28th, 2009 3:39 pm GMT - Posted by Jim Hardy
While labled Swine Flu, this is a hybrid containing DNA from Avian Flu, but is aparently easily transmitable between humans. To try to say this is just another Flu bug is less than factual. Personaly I would take this out break seriously.
April 28th, 2009 4:30 pm GMT - Posted by David Buhner
An ignorant analysis predicated on the two mistaken beliefs that 7% is a low mortality rate and that waiting until the problem is obviously a serious problem, as indicated by the number of cases, is a safe plan.
The mortality rate in the 1918 flu pandemic was 2%. Multiply that by 50 million and see what you get. SARS and Avian influenza have thousands only or less. The growth rate in an influenza epiemic is exponential. Once you have lots of cases in your community you are guaranteed thousands of cases very soon. Do the math, read some history, read something about epidemic influenza, and learn.
April 27th, 2009
3.2 Swine flu: Walking the line between hyping and helping
Post a comment (35)
Posted by: Dean Wright
Tags: Full Disclosure, david schlesinger, Dean Wright, media, newspapers, swine flu
Dean Wright is Global Editor, Ethics, Innovation and News Standards. Any opinions are his own.
There’s nothing like a disease outbreak to highlight the value of the media in alerting and informing the public in the face of an emergency.
There’s also nothing like it to bring out some of our more excessive behavior, essentially shouting “Run for your lives! (but, whatever you do, stay tuned, keep reading the website and don’t forget to buy the paper!).”
An outbreak of swine flu, which has killed scores in Mexico and infected others in the United States, Canada, Europe and New Zealand, is already having an effect on markets and travel plans, in addition to the obvious impact on public health.
The impact on markets could become more significant in time, but the impact on the media was practically immediate.
Cable television programmers went into crisis mode and a look at newspaper front pages and website home pages around the world showed a range of responses, from the almost hysterical to the concerned and more measured.
In the New York Daily News: “SWINE FLU SPREADS!” (though it was played below a sports story on the New York Yankees losing to the Boston Red Sox).
In the New York Post: “HOG WILD!” (also playing second to the Yankees’ humiliation, but illustrated with a pig sucking on a thermometer).
In The Japan Times (using a Reuters story): “Swine flu in Mexico sparks global panic”
In the South China Morning Post (which certainly has experience in covering bird flu and SARS): “Asia on high alert for swine flu as airports step up checks.”
In The Guardian: “Swine flu: call for global action as outbreak spreads.”
In the Toronto Sun: “CALM URGED AS FLU FEARS GROW.”
Later Monday, after the European Union health commissioner advised Europeans to postpone nonessential travel to the United States and Mexico, The New York Times led its website with “Europe Warned on U.S. Travel,” with a deck reflecting transatlantic disagreement, “Flu Advisory Unwarranted, C.D.C. Says.”
The BBC website focused on the confirmation of swine flu cases in the UK, with extensive Q&A’s on the origins of the disease and how it spreads and contributions from readers who were dealing with disease (some of them medical professionals in Mexico).
Big, bad-news stories can mean surges in audiences for media outlets and they certainly raise the adrenalin level of editors and reporters. They offer the temptation to go to excess, but they also offer the opportunity for us be of priceless service to our customers, clients and readers.
The question for me is how we in the media make sure we report accurately and informatively on the story and its impact on the markets and consumers’ lives without minimizing and without sensationalizing it.
“This is the type of story where our goal to stay factual and keep perspective is essential to uphold,” says Reuters Editor-in-Chief David Schlesinger. “Our role is neither to trivialize nor to hype or scaremonger, but to describe accurately what is happening and put its implications in context.”
Reuters has focused a great deal of resources—rightly, given our customers and audience—on the implications for the markets and the impact on the global economic downturn.
On Monday afternoon, Reuters.com was leading with “Will global recovery catch the flu?” atop a package of stories on possible market scenarios, the EU travel warning and factboxes on health precautions and industries being affected. One story noted, not surprisingly, that travel and tourism stocks were in turmoil.
Reuters.com also featured a special coverage page with the latest news, accompanied by a sober presentation of “Swine Flu Facts.” There’s even an invitation to receive updates on Twitter. Call me a skeptic on Twitter, but 140 characters won’t do much to add context to the story. Still, no one ever said Twitter was about context and at least you can follow developments, whether or not you’re near a computer.
My Reuters colleagues—especially the ones working bravely and tirelessly in Mexico—are succeeding in upholding the goal of staying factual and keeping events in perspective. It’s our mission to provide the information and insight our audience and customers need to make intelligent decisions about their investments and their lives. As shown by the World Health Organization’s decision Monday to raise the pandemic alert to Level 4, there’s plenty of drama to report without adding to it.
The swine flu story is still in its early stages and it remains to be seen if this becomes one of the biggest stories of our time. Whatever happens, it won’t hurt us all to take a deep breath now.
Post a comment (35) |
Share
| Trackback
Comments RSS
35 comments so far
Previous | 2 | 1 | Next
April 29th, 2009
1:19 am GMT It is very unreasonable and aggravating that our media is hyping such a small threat. If 7 deaths happened, and they consider this an outbreak, then the hundreds of shootings in Harlem that kill thousands a year must be epidemic and we should all wear bulletproof vests, as their is no vaccine protecting from bullets. The day we have to walk around in blue masks is going to be a day when pigs fly, and that is not a pun. I’m dead serious. I find it laughable and quite amusing that they go to such extremes to scare people in coughing up their money. If anything is an epidermic, it’s the amount of stinkbugs flying around. I killed 6 today…and a seventh one was in the window, but I let it live to show my superiority lol.
- Posted by Zack
April 28th, 2009
11:43 pm GMT The concern with this is the high rate at which this is spreading. People keep saying that over 200,000 people are hospitalized in the U.S. per year with the flu, but keep in mind that this has all been taking place within the past couple of WEEKS. Flu pandemics grow very fast and change a lot, and this is a virus we have no vaccine for and know very little about. That’s why people are taking notice.
- Posted by clay
April 28th, 2009
11:23 pm GMT The first comment is right - bravo DEAN WRIGHT!! A glimmer of responsibility and intelligence afloat in a cesspool of media superlatives and hysteria. NOT ONE PERSON in ANY country with a real health care system has died from this flu. Stick to the actual facts as you promise Mr. Wright, and you will be working for the most professional media outlet on the planet. In comparison, the verbal sewage coming out of CNN is beyond belief. As another blogger noted — the outrageous speculation in the media can reasonably be viewed as an act of terrorism on the uninformed population.
- Posted by RJ Roland
April 28th, 2009
10:23 pm GMT last night - mainstream tv australia - swine flu “highly likely” to become a pandemic and “kill millions of people” the fear mongering is unbelievable. “deadly swine flu virus sweeps the world” but no one outside mexico has died,
- Posted by ausmoron
April 28th, 2009
9:21 pm GMT There is nothing to fear but fear itself… so cease the day! just be sure to wash your hands and cover your cough please.
- Posted by thinkdrink
April 28th, 2009
8:28 pm GMT I detect a bit of racism or elitism from those who claim that since the only deaths were in Mexico, then Americans or Europeans have nothing to fear. Do you think you are genetically superior to Mexicans? What makes you think this swine flu can’t kill you? Don’t let bravado fool you. This flu is serious. You don’t have immunity to it so gather as much information as you can and thank the news media that keeps us informed.
- Posted by Greg
April 28th, 2009
7:53 pm GMT Thanks Sharon. The Hype has really been irritating me. The only positive point is that headlines seem to have temporarily stopped switching four times a day between ’slight global recovery’ and ‘deepening global recession’. I was getting dizzy!
- Posted by Bill
April 28th, 2009
7:53 pm GMT Speaking of causing panic, Reuters is not innocent either.
This article states 149 dead. (published by Reuters)
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticN ews/idUSTRE53R5OF20090428
This article states 7 dead …large difference!
http://www.reuters.com/article/asiaCrisi s/idUSLS627574
Does Reuters have an Editor or is it free-lance and open to the public.
- Posted by Bryan
April 28th, 2009
7:28 pm GMT From a mathematical standpoint it certainly seems to behave like an epidemic. From a historical standpoint, we are overdue for an epidemic. Actually we are somewhat overdue for largescale extinction in species. It happens routinely. Regardless of how the story ends, at least we will not have to wait long for the outcome. My philosophy in this situation is, if I am going to go, I might aswell eat whatever I want. So that is what I am doing.
- Posted by Don
April 28th, 2009
6:48 pm GMT Whats important is the IF, if the swine flu will change and become a more aggressive against our immune systems.
- Posted by Kuta
April 28th, 2009
6:45 pm GMT I don’t envy any reporter or media producer right now; they are in a no-win situation. If this flu turns out to be nothing, they’ll be blamed for hyping. If it turns out to be a repeat of 1918, they’ll be blamed for not warning us sufficiently.
The truth is, we’re due for a pandemic according to 90 years of research on flu cycles. It’s going to happen. We’re all responsible for getting the facts, taking reasonable steps to prepare and then keeping ourselves informed as situations develop. I appreciate the media doing what they can to help us, but ultimately I have to take responsibility for my family and myself.
- Posted by Vanessa
April 28th, 2009
6:09 pm GMT We shall see in the next few weeks how the situation will develop. For the moment, I am frankly disappointed with the way a number of big media-houses decided to cover the facts. I did follows the news in the major Italian newspapers on the web. The most inappropriate title did belong to Repubblica, a supposedly well-respected venue. On Saturday 25th, they wrote “E’ pandemia”, which translate literary in “It’s pandemic”. As a matter of fact, the phone lines of the Italian Ministry of Health have been flooded with calls from people with flu-like symptoms, including soar throat, or people concerned with the safety of eating pork meat, something which has been declared to be safe over and over again. The situation is certainly serious, but the media must behave intelligently, because the damage of wrong information can be huge. Information should inform and, in such a delicate moment, it must not be crafted with the sole purpose of selling.
- Posted by Simone Severini
April 28th, 2009
5:44 pm GMT This reminds me of the salmonella “outbreak” that flew around the US over the past few months. I think the total of “confirmed” cases was approaching 1000. It’s a shame that they neglected to report that there are over 1,000,000 (yeah, that’s 6 zeros) cases reported each year, which is still a small percentage of general food poisoning cases reported. The media (sorry for the generalization) does way to much sensational crap from the local news to the international giants. “Dozen’s of people die, stayed tuned after the break and we’ll tell you where.”
- Posted by John Doe
April 28th, 2009
5:10 pm GMT The amount of fear and hype is over the top, how many of you are over 40 dont you remember this before?? and Tamiflu stock piles…. Donald Rumsfeld on the board….
And just in case the media cant report this properly, it is Mexico as of April 27, CONFIRMED 26 cases of infection with H1N1 virus, ANF THERE ARE ONLY 7 CONFIRMED DEATHS…. and INTERESTING not one other death reported in the WORLD. Check the facts yourself.. but the phamaceutical companies have increased their sale by 300%…
oh and lets not forget the quote from lloyds bank yesterday “Kenneth Broux, economist at Lloyds TSB. If the danger of a significant global outbreak proves limited, U.S. corporate earnings will reclaim their prominence in driving activity in currency markets. If it proves to be more serious, there will be more repatriation into dollar-denominated assets, he said.”
Wake up folks….
http://www.promedmail.org/pls/otn/f?p=24 00:1001:7626233442320714::NO::F2400_P100 1_BACK_PAGE,F2400_P1001_PUB_MAIL_ID:1000 ,77228
- Posted by sharon
April 28th, 2009
4:57 pm GMT As a praticing Internist, I am appaled at the frank hysteria that the newsmedia is creating. This irresponsible behavior is not unlike an act of terrorism. This may be the best example of awful reporting made even worse by substituting the desire for sensationalism for true fact- base reporting. I dread seeing what will be said by the media, particularly CNN (which has reached new lows), when the rush to get medication results in a shortage. The population needs to know of the issues and know that the disease is treatable but doesn’t need to frightened by all the hyperbole. BTW, how does one define the “scores” who have died? What co-morbidities may have an influence? Thanks for raising the question even if you may be contributing to the problem.
Posted by A practicing Internist.
April 28th, 2009
4:48 pm GMT If you are a student of the history of the 1918 Influenza, you can see the similarities that cause concern. I bought 30 5 gal jugs of water, vitamins, staples. Why not?
- Posted by Denese Jokela
April 28th, 2009
4:10 pm GMT Yet another sterling example why it is never a good idea to have unprotected sex with pigs…
or swines.
- Posted by phoenix1
April 28th, 2009
3:45 pm GMT Thanks Dean,
I’m glad there are people out there who are not buying into the hype. If you look at the cases of the people hospitalize during the flu season you will see that the CDC has recorded 200,000 Americans had to be hospitalize and 36,000 died from flu complications and this the average for a regular flu season. Knowing this it will be awhile before you see me walking around in a mask.
- Posted by Al
April 28th, 2009
3:42 pm GMT The media as usual are blowing this epidemic out of all proportion. I do not know of a single media organisation that I wouuld trust to report any story , however trivial or important, with anything approaching responsibility and sensibility. The only sensible thing to do I think is to accept that the media is run by a small number people who take great pleasure in alarming the vast majority.Much of the depression felt by many people at the moment can be blamed totally on the media.
- Posted by David Fawcett
April 28th, 2009
3:12 pm GMT Finally, an article about the human condition that doesn’t find it necessary to connect it to the economy. Humans evolved for millions of years without capitalism. If we’re lucky we might move forward without it.
A hundred or or so people die from the influenza and the media blitz’s is with coverage. I wish the “media” had more concern for the tens of thousands of children who die from preventable disease every day all for a lack of potable water. Where is that coverage? If we all new the cause of this condition there would be mass outrage. Or is it possible that since the poorest in the world have little electricity and no television there is no reason to broadcast their story. Besides that advertising market isn’t very lucrative.
When I pause to listen, I hear the devoutly religious express their belief that judgment day and destruction are at hand. Many agnostics and atheists have resigned themselves to humanity destroying itself and perhaps the planet along with them. I for one remain a little more hopeful. But if I am wrong then why have the influences of religion and logic left so many disinterested and unconcerned with the plight of our neediest brothers and sisters around the world?
- Posted by Anubis
April 28th, 2009
3:03 pm GMT Hi all,
I would rather like to be laughed at for being prepared and nothing happens than being laughed at for not being prepared and something happens.
See physorg.com for a good article on how to avoid catching or spreading the virus.
Take care all.
- Posted by Michel Tremblay
April 28th, 2009
2:41 pm GMT While media generally sensationalizes the stories it can capitalize readership gains on. Make no mistake about it, Influenza and other communicable diseases are a clear and present danger. Weather or not the current “Swine Flu” is another worldwide Pandemic or not, we should be vigilant regarding the spread of communicable diseases and constantly refine our techniques to prevent the spread of fast spreading and potentially deadly disease.
- Posted by DavidJ
April 28th, 2009
2:26 pm GMT I have been following the updates as Im due to fly out on the 6th May 2009 for a honeymoon, I have been informed by my holiday insurers that whilst the warning by the F/O is in place our insurance is all null and void if we travel. We were still wanting to go with a supply of Tamiflu tablets just in case, however now they are suspending flights. None of the people outside of Mexico have died, the European countries obviously have a better standard of health facilities and diet contributing to this, however if this virus affects the young and the old then if we carry it we may infect people less healthy than ourselves etc on our return… so that is a concern… I think that the media tends to make the situation worse but that is not helping the poor Mexicans who have lost their lives!
- Posted by kay robson
April 28th, 2009
2:02 pm GMT CNN International takes the cake for the most sensationalism with regards to this “crisis”.
Richard Quest - recently annointed CNN’s Expert on Economics - has been doomsaying the world economy of late. Now he has become the “Swine Flu Guru” and he is singlehandedly trying to scare the living h… out of anyone who happens to tune in. If the economy doesn’t get you, pig flu will!
I doubt that Ted Turner - who certainly was interested in commercial success - would have allowed this amount of sensationalism. It is truely shameful.
Quest should go back to his travel show: probably the only area where he has any expertise.
- Posted by Paul Spellswell
April 28th, 2009
1:34 pm GMT Lock yourself in your house and watch American Idol and Survivor on TV. Stock up on garlic and oil of oregano. Buy the time I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here comes on TV in the summer …you should be able to venture outside.
- Posted by Dr_Doom
April 28th, 2009
1:16 pm GMT My favourite so far is the BBC sending a TV crew to meet returning holidaymakers as they stepped off plane from Mexico. As a layman, I don’t _know_ that there’s a period when a person is infectious without showing symptoms (although I understand that’s pretty common with viruses), but at a time when we ought to be reducing opportunities for transmission rather than multiplying them, I thought it was an amusing touch.
- Posted by Ian Kemmish
April 28th, 2009
12:35 pm GMT This is ridiculous!! The real story here is how the media is trying to turn this into something big when it is not! Reuters and others: Please stick to reporting the news instead of creating it! A lot to do about nothing!
- Posted by Victoria
April 28th, 2009
11:39 am GMT Very good points sir. The media should also stop and think of the impact to our economy that they are having. By hyping the story so much, they cause the government to spend amounts of time and money responding. Considering that we have over 100 deaths every day due to car accidents, having a bunch of people sick with the flu shouldn’t even be on our radar. The CDC and other agencies will inform us if it does start getting out of hand. This story was hyped so much that the president actually had to be briefed and make a statement. Over 40 people getting the flu? Gimme a break. Let’s all get a bit more realistic, aay? We plain can’t afford this kind of sensationalism for ratings any more.
- Posted by Russ
April 28th, 2009
7:53 am GMT On a national talk radio broadcast this evening here in Honolulu we are told the flu media hype in America is a fear cover for the heating up investigations into torture -who’s- responsible news. It’s difficult for me to believe that, but I do know I have seen and listened to irresponsible reporting and turn to other than American sources of news for better clarity. Thanks Reuters!
- Posted by Kate paine
April 28th, 2009
5:50 am GMT it is due to media i was able to refresh my knowledge of swine flu.good job media.
- Posted by dr.avinash manwatkar.
April 28th, 2009
3:57 am GMT Chickenlegs, unless the title of the piece was rewritten, the author is correct. Media is a collective singular. “Is the media” is correct.
- Posted by David Pauls
April 28th, 2009
2:44 am GMT Thanks for your remarks; news organizations could be less hysterical and more restrained but I must be dreaming. But I read Reuters because television is trash and there’s very little outlets other than the Economist or The FT. Good work.
- Posted by Andrew Franks
April 28th, 2009
2:01 am GMT thanks for your balanced thoughts and perspective. i SO appreciate that. i’ve been living and breathing swine flu updates as i’m traveling to puerto vallarta in the morning… and the slants and facts leaving out key bits of information is annoying… also, when my friends and family are informed only by news sites that are reporting but also being scary about it, then i have to deal with them too!
it’s been a long weekend and my friend and i made the decision at the last minute today to go. we looked in to other destinations, but due to our nonrefundable ticket, high cost of other destinations should we take united up on their offer to change with no penalty, and plans later in the summer that will make it difficult (if not impossible, for me) to postpone this vacation, ultimately we are still going.
masks and all.
- Posted by sarah
April 28th, 2009
1:49 am GMT Firstly, media are ignorant in their reporting of important areas of Science. How many of your reporters have qualifications in Science? Secondly, you don’t invoke much confidence when you don’t know singular (is the medium) from plural (are the media), as demonstrated in your header.
- Posted by Chickenlegs1
April 28th, 2009
1:38 am GMT BRAVO DEAN WRIGHT!! A glimmer of responsibility and intelligence afloat in a cesspool of media superlatives and hysteria. NOT ONE PERSON in ANY country with a real health care system has died from this flu. Stick to the actual facts as you promise Mr. Wright, and you will be working for the most best media outlet on the planet.
- Posted by TJ Reader
4, FACTBOX:How swine flu spreads in humans
Sun Apr 26, 2009 9:51pm EDT
Reuters) - A new strain of influenza is infecting people in Mexico and the United States and may have killed up to 60 people in Mexico, global health officials said on Friday.
The CDC has analyzed samples of the H1N1 virus from some of the U.S. patients, all of whom have recovered, and said it is a never-before-seen mixture of viruses from swine, birds and humans.
Here are some facts from the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention about how swine flu spreads in humans:
* Swine flu viruses typically sicken pigs, not humans. Most cases occur when people come in contact with infected pigs or contaminated objects moving from people to pigs.
* Pigs can catch human and avian or bird flu. When flu viruses from different species infect pigs, they can mix inside the pig and new, mixed viruses can emerge.
* Pigs can pass mutated viruses back to humans and they can be passed from human to human. Transmission among humans is thought to occur in the same way as seasonal flu -- by touching something with flu viruses and then touching their mouth or nose, and through coughing or sneezing.
* Symptoms of swine flu in people are similar to those of seasonal influenza -- sudden fever, coughing, muscle aches and extreme fatigue. This new strain also appears to cause more diarrhea and vomiting than normal flu.
* Vaccines are available to be given to pigs to prevent swine influenza. There is no vaccine to protect humans from swine flu although the CDC is formulating one. The seasonal influenza vaccine may help provide partial protection against swine H3N2, but not swine H1N1 viruses, like the one circulating now.
* People cannot catch swine flu from eating pork or pork products. Cooking pork to an internal temperature of 160 degrees Fahrenheit (71 degrees Celsius) kills the swine flu virus as it does other bacteria and viruses.
5, FACTBOX: Flu spreads silently, causes vague symptoms
Mon Apr 27, 2009 9:41am EDT
Q+A: World watching Mexico swine flu virus
Sunday, 26 Apr 2009 09:51pm EDT
FACTBOX: New flu strain is a genetic mix
Friday, 24 Apr 2009 05:33am EDT
(Reuters) - A new strain of influenza has killed 103 people in Mexico and spread across North America and possibly as far afield as Spain and New Zealand. No one is certain about how virulent the virus is -- meaning how severe the symptoms are -- or what its patterns of transmission are.
Here are some facts about influenza in general, its symptoms and how it is transmitted.
* "Influenza" refers to a family of viruses that include influenza A, influenza B and influenza C.
* Symptoms include sudden onset of fever, muscle aches, headaches, cough and sometimes diarrhea and vomiting. Flu feels far more severe than a cold.
* People can pass flu along before they feel ill and after they feel better. Flu viruses can be found not only in nasal secretions but in fecal matter.
* The "incubation period" for flu -- the time it takes from infection before symptoms develop -- is usually about 24 to 48 hours, although it is not clear what the case is for this new H1N1 swine flu virus.
* The virus can be transmitted on particles of saliva and mucus when people cough and sneeze close to one another. Experts generally agree that three feet (1 meter) is the distance these particles can travel between people.
* Flu viruses can also live for days or even weeks on dry surfaces. More and more evidence shows that people very frequently infect themselves by touching a contaminated surface, such as a computer keyboard, and then touching the nose, eyes or mouth.
* Flu viruses evolve, or mutate, constantly. New strains emerge regularly, which is why the annual flu vaccine must be reformulated every year.
* Flu viruses are believed all to originate in animals. Little changes or mutations in the DNA can allow them to more easily infect people. Some cause more serious symptoms than others.
* Flu viruses are frequently deadly. The World Health Organization estimates that flu kills 250,000 to 500,000 people in a normal year, more during pandemics, which last occurred in 1968, 1957 and 1918.
* Flu can kill directly by causing pneumonia, and it can also make people more vulnerable to bacterial infections that also kill.
6, FACTBOX: Making a flu vaccine can take months
Sun Apr 26, 2009 9:51pm EDT
(Reuters) - The U.N. World Health Organization and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been collecting samples of the new H1N1 swine flu virus to make a new vaccine in case it is needed.
Following are some facts about influenza vaccines.
* The WHO and CDC prepare samples of virus to give to industrial makers.
* These samples must be grown in specially produced chicken eggs. The virus is then purified and made into vaccines, a process that takes months.
* At least 20 companies make flu vaccines including Sanofi Pasteur, Australia's CSL Ltd, GlaxoSmithKline Plc, Novartis AG, Baxter and nasal spray maker MedImmune, acquired by AstraZeneca Plc.
* Experts agree the current process for making vaccines is clumsy and outdated, but new and more efficient technologies are still a few years away.
* WHO and CDC experts are trying to decide if a new vaccine for the H1N1 swine flu strain is needed, or perhaps if a fourth element could be added to the seasonal flu vaccine mix for next September.
* The health agencies also had been considering adding some vaccines against H5N1 avian influenza, which occasionally infects people and is also considered a major pandemic threat.
* Tests show the H1N1 component of the current seasonal flu vaccine does not protect against the new strain.
* Consulting firm Oliver Wyman found that drug companies would need four years to meet global demand for vaccines if a pandemic broke out today, but new technology could significantly boost production by 2014.
* Currently, drug makers could make up to 2.5 billion doses of pandemic vaccines in one year, meaning it would take four years to meet global demand, Oliver Wyman found. In a best-case scenario, they could make 7.7 billion doses in 1.5 years.
* Compounds called adjuvants can be used to boost a vaccine's effectiveness, so it could be diluted and used in more people.
* Current global demand for seasonal influenza vaccine is about 500 million doses a year.
* The CDC recommends that 261 million Americans -- 85 percent of the population -- should be vaccinated against flu. A RAND Corp. study in December showed that only about a third of those who should have did get the vaccine.
7, Q&A: Swine flu: Is SARS a guide for the economic impact?
Mon Apr 27, 2009 9:41am EDT
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - As fears grow about whether a new dangerous strain of swine flu will develop into a global pandemic and affect economies, Asia can look to the 2003 SARS epidemic for pointers on what might happen.
In 2003, Asia was feeling the effects of the October 2002 Bali bombings, a tentative world recovery was underway from the bursting of the technology bubble and there was conflict in Iraq.
Likewise today, other factors, such as job and income losses from the credit crisis, could make it difficult to isolate the effects of any swine flu outbreak.
But SARS provides the last main point of reference in how the world dealt with a pandemic that was spread by human-to-human contact and how it affected economies and markets.
Here are some questions and answers about the severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, crisis:
WHAT WAS THE IMPACT OF SARS ON ASIA?
The World Health Organization declared SARS a pandemic in March 2003. By June of that year, it had lifted an advisory warning against traveling to SARS affected countries.
There were some 8,000 cases and close to 800 deaths. The most visible impact of SARS was on tourism and consumption patterns in the most affected countries: Singapore, Hong Kong, China and Malaysia, although others in the region also suffered. Singapore and Hong Kong slipped into recession in 2003.
Other countries affected by SARS included Canada, South Africa, Sweden, France and the United States. Deaths were reported in Asia, Canada, France and South Africa.
According to the Asian Development Bank, the cost of SARS in terms of lost GDP in nominal terms for East and Southeast Asia was about $18 billion or 0.6 percentage points of 2003
GDP.
The main channels through which SARS affected economies was through tourist arrivals. ADB data shows a 20-70 percent drop on tourist arrivals in April 2003 in the most affected economies, while others in Asia also saw declines of 15-35 percent, leading to estimated tourism revenue losses of nearly $15 billion or 0.5 percent of GDP.
SARS-affected economies experienced drops in retail sales growth in the order of 5-10 percent in early 2003. Hong Kong's economy shrank 2.6 percent and Singapore's by 2 percent in the first half of 2003. Overall growth was ironically helped by a simultaneous decline in imports and investment.
HOW DID MARKETS REACT TO SARS?
Market reaction was relatively muted, possibly because the panic over SARS lasted for just about one quarter and governments reacted quickly. Continued...
The Singapore dollar fell nearly 4 percent against the U.S. dollar between the end of January 2003 and the end of April 2003, but it then rallied.
MCSI's emerging Asia-ex-Japan index fell around 14 percent between January and March 2003. From the end of March it rallied by 56 percent during the rest of the year
Hong Kong's benchmark index shed 18 percent of its value between December 2002 and April 2003, bottoming at a 4-year low.
For a graphic on economic and market impact, click here:
here
WHAT ECONOMIC MEASURES WERE IMPLEMENTED IN RESPONSE TO
SARS?
China had price controls for SARS-related drugs, tax waivers for affected industries such as hotels, interest subsidies for tourism sectors.
Hong Kong's government announced a package of measures worth around 1 percent of GDP, which included tax reductions and loan guarantees. Singapore likewise had a SARS relief package including measures for airlines. It also eased monetary policy in July 2003 by a one-off devaluation of the currency. Malaysia's package was close to 2 percent of GDP and included cheaper loans, support for job training and tourism sectors.
IS THE ECONOMIC SITUATION DIFFERENT NOW?
The starting point for most economies is much lower, since the credit crisis has already plunged a lot of the developed world and countries such as Singapore, Japan and Hong Kong into recession.
Tourism received a big boost between 2004 and 2007 and is now a much bigger contributor to growth, with revenues comprising between 6 and 9 percent of GDP in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore.
LINKS
> After SARS, bird flu, Asia wary of new virus..
> Global fears over flu outbreak, over 100 dead.
> Asia stocks, commodities hit by flu fears.....
8, FACTBOX: Some facts about pandemic flu from the WHO
(Reuters) - The U.N. World Health Organization has said it is closely monitoring an outbreak of a new deadly strain of swine flu in Mexico and the United States.
The human-to-human spread of the virus has raised fears of a flu pandemic. The WHO has said it needs more information before it changes its pandemic alert level, currently at three on a scale of one to six.
Here are some facts about pandemic influenza from the WHO's website http:/www.who.int/csr/disease/influenza/pandemic10things/en/
* Flu pandemics are caused by new flu viruses that adapt into strains that become contagious between humans.
* Flu pandemics occurred three times in the past century: the Hong Kong flu in 1968, the Asian flu in 1957 and the Spanish flu of 1918.
* Experts agree that another pandemic could come at any time and could involve any one of a number of new strains of flu. Most eyes have been on the H5N1 strain of avian flu that first infected people in Hong Kong in 1997. Since 2003 it has infected 421 people in 15 countries and killed 257 of them.
* To be declared a pandemic strain, a virus must be new to humans, cause serious illness, be easily transmitted from one person to another, and sustain that transmission efficiently.
* All countries will be affected once a fully contagious pandemic virus emerges. Previous pandemics circled the globe in six to nine months, even before international air travel was common. Today, a virus could reach all continents in weeks.
* Widespread illness will occur. Most people will have no immunity to the pandemic virus. A substantial percentage of the world's population will need medical care, but few countries have enough staff, facilities, equipment and hospital beds.
* Supplies of vaccines and antiviral drugs will be inadequate. Many developing countries will have no access to vaccines.
* Many people will die. Based on the 1957 pandemic, the WHO conservatively estimates 2 million to 7.4 million people may die during the next outbreak, but says all estimates are speculative, and will depend on how many people become infected and the virulence of the virus, among other factors.
* Economic and social disruption will be great. High rates of worker absenteeism will impair services like power, transportation and communications.
* Every country must be prepared. The WHO has issued a series of recommended responses to the pandemic threat.
* The WHO will alert the world when the pandemic threat increases, working closely with governments and public health organizations on surveillance. WHO experts say it is too soon now to declare another pandemic.
9, FACTBOX: Measures in North, South America against flu
Tue Apr 28, 2009 4:03pm EDT
(Reuters) - Governments across North and South America took measures to avert a pandemic as the new swine flu virus spread from Mexico.
MEXICO
* In Mexico, the center of the outbreak where 149 people were reported to have died, schools throughout the country have been closed until May 6.
* The Mexican government issued an emergency decree that gives it the power to isolate sick people, enter homes or workplaces and regulate air, sea and land transportation to try and stop further infection.
* Congress was to meet in a closed-door session on Tuesday to consider measures.
* Mexico City authorities shut bars, restaurants, cinemas, gyms and even churches and made soccer teams play in empty stadiums to prevent the disease's spread. Many offices told workers to stay home but traffic remained heavy.
* The government said it had $450,000 available to fight the flu, and the World Bank offered $205 million in loans.
UNITED STATES
* In the United States, where all 52 cases reported have been mild, the government declared a public health emergency. President Barack Obama said it was a "precautionary tool" that would give health officials the resources needed to respond quickly and effectively.
* U.S. health officials advised Americans to avoid "non-essential" trips to Mexico and announced steps to release some of the U.S. stockpiles of the anti-flu drugs Tamiflu and Relenza.
* Local authorities were told to plan for possible school closures and anyone with symptoms was urged to stay at home.
* Officials said they were not testing air travelers from Mexico for the virus but the CDC was preparing a "yellow card" for travelers explaining flu symptoms and precautions to take.
* The U.S. Embassy in Mexico City said it would suspend visa and nonemergency services for U.S. citizens in the city.
* Several major U.S. airlines were allowing customers to change travel plans to Mexico without any fee or penalty.
CANADA
* After six cases were confirmed in Canada, all involving only mild illness, the government said it was increasing its surveillance for possible new cases and urged people to take precautions like frequent hand washing. Continued...
* Canada advised against non-essential travel to Mexico.
* Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said the government would provide extra health funding if needed, but for the time being it was a question of monitoring the situation.
BRAZIL
* Officials are screening passengers on flights from the United States, Mexico and Canada for flu symptoms and placed an order for 100,000 surgical masks to be distributed at airports.
CHILE
* Officials installed a fever scanner in the airport to screen passengers from Mexico and the United States and called on citizens to avoid travel to countries with a flu risk.
COLOMBIA
* The government declared a disaster situation as a preventive measure, providing funds for increased monitoring of possible cases and clearing the way for purchases of medicines and gear such as surgical masks.
* The government recommended people suspend trips to Mexico, California and Texas.
VENEZUELA
* Venezuela recommended people avoid travel to Mexico and the United States and stepped up sanitary control at airports.
CUBA
* Cubana Airlines canceled its Havana to Mexico City flight and officials were monitoring passengers arriving from Mexico.
ECUADOR
Ecuador banned imports of pigs and pork products from the United States and Mexico as a precaution. No cases reported.
ARGENTINA, BOLIVIA, PANAMA, PERU, URUGUAY
* Officials checked for people with flu symptoms arriving from Mexico and other countries including the United States where cases have been confirmed.
(Compiled by World Desk Americas and Fiona Ortiz in Buenos Aires; Editing Anthony Boadle)
10, FACTBOX: New flu strain is a genetic mix
Sun Apr 26, 2009 9:51pm EDT
(Reuters) - A deadly swine flu never seen before has broken out in Mexico, killing at least 16 people and raising fears of a possible pandemic. World Health Organization officials said the flu has killed about 60 Mexicans.
Here are some facts about the virus and flu viruses in general:
* The World Health Organization has confirmed at least some of the cases are a never-before-seen strain of influenza A virus, carrying the designation H1N1.
* Although it's called swine flu, this new strain is not infecting pigs and has never been seen in pigs. The threat is person to person transmission.
* It is genetically different from the fully human H1N1 seasonal influenza virus that has been circulating globally for the past few years. The new flu virus contains DNA typical to avian, swine and human viruses, including elements from European and Asian swine viruses.
* The World Health Organization is concerned but says it is too soon to change the threat level warning for a pandemic-- a global epidemic of a new and dangerous flu.
* When a new strain of flu starts infecting people, and when it acquires the ability to pass from person to person, it can spark a pandemic. The last pandemic was in 1968 and killed about a million people.
* Seven people in the United States have been diagnosed with the new strain. All have recovered, but the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expects more cases.
* Flu viruses mutate constantly, which is why the flu vaccine is changed every year, and they can swap DNA in a process called reassortment. Most animals can get flu, but viruses rarely pass from one species to another.
* From December 2005 through February 2009, 12 cases of human infection with swine influenza were confirmed. All but one person had contact with pigs. There was no evidence of human-to-human transmission in those cases.
* Symptoms of swine flu in people are similar to those of seasonal influenza -- sudden onset of fever, coughing, muscle aches and extreme tiredness. Swine flu appears to cause more diarrhea and vomiting than normal flu.
* Seasonal flu kills between 250,000 and 500,000 people globally in an average year.
* In 1976 a new strain of swine flu started infecting people and worried U.S. health officials started widespread vaccination. More than 40 million people were vaccinated. But several cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a severe and sometime fatal condition that can be linked to some vaccines, caused the U.S. government to stop the program. The incident led to widespread distrust of vaccines in general.
(Reporting by Maggie Fox)
平均得分
(0 次评分)
文章来自: 
标签: 评论: 0 | 查看次数: 305
发表评论
