Don't demonise the piggies: the Atypical Influenza or Mexican/ American Influenza (note that I don't think it should not be called swine or pig flu) is now categorised as Phase 5 on the WHO scale of any pandemic alert; Three key points that need stressing, paraphrased from the American Association of Swine Veterinarians (AASV) talking points:1. Pork is safe to eat.
2. The virus is not yet known to exist in pigs anywhere; researchers in veterinary diagnostic labs in the U.S. have sequenced hundreds of viruses on-hand and have not found this novel H1N1.
3.The virus is transmitting human to human, pigs are not involved in the transmission cycle. (phase 5 "is characterized by human-to-human spread of the virus into at least two countries in one WHO region")
Some stupidity is expected, and some political/religious expedience: "CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt started seizing and slaughtering herds of pigs on Thursday as a precaution against swine flu officials and farmers said, despite resistance by farmers and criticism from the United Nations".
P.S. The alarming sight of many people in facemasks ISN'T because the virus is naturally airborne but because Coughs and Sneezes spread diseases.
P.P.S. If you show symptoms PLEASE do not go anywhere near a pig farm, the last thing that industry needs is a pig actually getting the virus!
Picture credit: deviled.blog.cz
3 comments:
There's an awful lot of excitement over the word 'pandemic' - you know the one derived from the Greek for all. It could mean ten people in each country around the world but you'd think we were all going to die horribly in our beds this week.
Poor Piggy!
There was someone sneezing away of the plane yesterday...normally I get very frustrated and annoyed anyway - fussy manic that I am - that they don't just cover their nose of hold it to 'defuse the sneeze; this time I wasn't the only one: 'lynch mob faces' would describe it nicely. Face masks everywhere too. On eflight to go and I'm back in Spain....still feeling fine (tempting fate!)
Reminds me of the panic following 9/11 I was at Cherbourg and there were these three 'middle eastern' looking guys with a transit - talk about ice cold in Alex, these guys were the next suicide bombers.
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