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 Wearing a facemask reduces the risk of catching the flu
by as much as 80% according to new study.
Order yours now by going HERE. Swine Flu Facts
What you need to know now
to protect
your family from a swine flu pandemic
How dangerous is the swine flu?
Experts are divided. Some are predicting a world wide pandemic that could take millions of lives.
PANDEMIC!
June 11, 2009
GENEVA (AP) — The World Health Organization has told its member nations it is declaring a swine flu pandemic — the first global flu epidemic in 41 years.
The move came Thursday as infections climbed in the United States, Europe, Australia, South America and elsewhere.
In a statement sent to member countries, WHO says it decided to raise the pandemic alert level from phase 5 to 6, meaning that a global outbreak of swine flu has begun. The decision was made after the U.N. health agency held an emergency meeting on swine flu with its experts.
Phase 6 is WHO's highest alert level and means that a swine flu pandemic is under way. The last pandemic — the Hong Kong flu of 1968 — killed about 1 million people. Ordinary flu kills about 250,000 to 500,000 people each year.
Since the new flu strain — dubbed A(H1N1) — first emerged in Mexico and the United States in April, it has spread to 74 countries around the globe. On Wednesday, WHO reported 27,737 cases including 141 deaths. The agency has stressed that most cases are mild and require no treatment, but the fear is that a rash of new infections could overwhelm hospitals and health authorities — especially in poorer countries.
The long-awaited pandemic announcement is scientific confirmation that a new flu virus has emerged and is quickly circling the globe. It will trigger drugmakers to speed up production of a swine flu vaccine and prompt governments to devote more money to containing the virus.
In May, several countries urged WHO not to declare a pandemic, fearing it would spark mass panic.
Fear has already gripped Argentina, where so many people worried about swine flu flooded into hospitals this week that emergency health services in the capital have collapsed. Last month, a bus arriving in Argentina from Chile was stoned by people who thought a passenger on it had swine flu. Chile has the most swine flu cases in South America.
In Hong Kong, the government on Thursday ordered all kindergartens and primary schools closed for two weeks after a dozen students tested positive for swine flu.
In Australia, swine flu cases jumped to more than 1,000 on Monday and reached 1,260 by late Wednesday.
WHO says its pandemic announcement would not mean the situation was worsening, since no mutations have been detected in the virus to show it is getting more deadly.
In Edinburgh, Sturgeon told lawmakers that a WHO announcement means countries should immediately activate their pandemic plans.
"A move to level 6 is not a verdict on the severity of the virus," she said. "It simply means that the extent of global spread now fulfills the definition of a pandemic."
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Others say the whole thing is blown out of proportion, citing the fact that it's a disease that so far has proven to be relatively benign.
So far there have been less than 200 people killed by the H1N1 virus. You stand a greater chance of being killed by lightning. In this respect, the naysayers are correct.
But the flu virus never stands still. It is constantly changing. It has the potential to commingle its genetic material with that of a human influenza virus and, in so doing, acquire the ability to be transmitted from person to person.
If and when this happens, nobody will have resistance to it and a pandemic is inevitable.
The big question is, will this happen with H1N1?
Is the risk big enough that you should be concerned?
Should you start stockpiling food and water and face masks and other necessities on the basis of a threat that may never come to pass?
Frankly, after examining the facts and ignoring the hype, we're left with some very real concerns.
The current Swine Flu that is sweeping the globe exhibits some very ominous similarities to the great Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918. For one thing, they are both of the H1N1 Swine Flu variety. Both began as a mild infection in the spring and targeted previously healthy young adults. In the fall of 1918, the virus was much more deadly, leading to the death of 20-50 million people, most of which were previously healthy young adults.
We're hopeful that medical science will find a way to protect us by the time it arrives, but we're not willing to bet our lives on it. Therefore we have taken all reasonable steps to protect ourselves and our loved ones if a pandemic does hit.
Late Breaking News...
Swine flu infections pass 52,000: WHO
By Denis Rousseau
June 23, 2009 - 7:29AM
The World Health Organisation has reported a huge leap in the swine flu pandemic tally to more than 52,000 people infected and 231 dead.
The tally has risen by more than 7,873 cases and 51 deaths since Friday, highlighting the steady spread of the A(H1N1) virus.
Swine flu has now been reported in 100 countries and territories.
And figures yet to be incorporated into the UN health agency's official figures indicate an even higher toll. The Philippines has reported the first swine flu death in Asia, Iran joined the countries reporting their first cases, while Singapore quarantined a Hong Kong football team.
The United States led a group of countries that have seen dramatic increases in cases of virus, according to the new WHO figures released on Monday.
There were an extra 3,594 cases taking the US total to 21,449 with 87 deaths. Mexico was stable with 7,600 cases and 113 deaths.
But Chile, which is entering the southern hemisphere winter has also been badly hit with 1,190 more cases (4,315), including four deadly.
There have been an extra 805 extra cases in Canada (5,710), where there have been 13 deaths.
Britain remains the worst-hit country in Europe. It has recorded 754 extra cases taking its total to 2,506, including one death.
In Australia there are 237 extra cases at 2,436, with one death, though health officials are still to determine what role swine flu played in the death of the 26-year-old man who suffered from a range of health issues.
In Japan there are 160 more cases at 850. China has an extra 220 cases at 739. China's health ministry website on Sunday said 414 people had fallen ill with swine flu.
A 49-year-old woman in the Philippines became Asia's first fatality linked to swine flu, health authorities said.
She had been suffering from heart and liver ailments for some time, and the department said in a statement that her infection with the influenza A (H1N1) virus had worsened her condition.
The woman's case had gone undetected until a doctor visited her in her home when she was already in critical condition, the department said.
Singapore on Monday quarantined 18 members of the Hong Kong youth football team after three players tested positive for swine flu ahead of the Asian Youth Games.
Thirteen players, three coaches, a physiotherapist and a team official were placed under quarantine at a suburban beach resort, a Games spokeswoman said.
Singapore authorities quarantined 19 members of the Philippine football squad at the weekend after one player tested positive for A(H1N1).
The spread of swine flu was highlighted when Iran's health ministry reported the country's first virus case in a 16-year-old boy who had just been to the United States, the official IRNA news agency said.
The WHO said that its figures could not be considered reliable because some countries were no longer keeping total figures while other poor countries did not have the means to reliably detect cases.
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Our purpose with this website is to provide you with the information you need in order to make a balanced, reasonable approach to the issue and to help you to take the steps you'll need to give yourselves the protection and peace of mind that will allow you to carry on with your everyday activities without undue concern for what might or might not happen.
When you sign up for our free newsletter we'll keep you informed on a regular basis on the latest developments. If you'd like to be pro-active and help inform others we have a brochure that you can pass along. If your employer doesn't yet have a business continuity plan in place, we have one that you can download at no charge.
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New York City Closes Three Schools as Swine Flu Outbreak Flares
May 15 (Bloomberg) -- An assistant principal was hospitalized in critical condition and three New York City public schools shut in a renewed outbreak of swine flu that first sickened hundreds of residents about three weeks ago.
“Unusually high levels” of flu-like illness in the schools triggered the closures, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said last evening at a City Hall news conference. The male assistant principal at Intermediate School 238 in Jamaica, in the city borough of Queens, where more than 50 students have been sent home sick, may have had a pre-existing condition that worsened his illness, Bloomberg said.
New York City was the first area in the U.S. last month to report more than a dozen cases of swine flu that has now reached 34 countries and sickened more than 6,500 people worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. City health authorities said May 1 they would test only those New Yorkers seriously ill with flu-like symptoms because most local cases of the new influenza, known as H1N1, were no more severe than seasonal flu. At the time, Bloomberg said more than 1,000 people in the city may have been infected with the virus.
“I know that many will find this information troubling, but information I’ve always thought is the best antidote to anxiety and we will continue to provide New Yorkers with clear, accurate and timely information as we have it,” Bloomberg said last night. “By taking common sense precautions and not by overreacting we will get through this together.”
In addition to IS 238, or the Susan B. Anthony School, the shut schools are Public School 16Q in Corona, Queens, where 29 students were documented with flu-like symptoms, and IS 5Q, the Walter Crowley Intermediate School in Elmhurst, Queens, where 241 students were reported absent.
‘Unusually High’
“We have been carefully monitoring the H1N1 virus, and we’re taking this action today because there are unusually high levels of flu-like illnesses at three public schools,” Bloomberg said at City Hall, where he was joined by Governor David Paterson and city schools Chancellor Joel Klein.
“This is the best procedure: to close these three schools for public safety and for the continued safety of the families involved,” Paterson said.
A total of 4,500 students attend the three schools. The earliest date the schools may reopen is May 22 under the order put in place after health officials discovered the influenza symptoms. Bloomberg said H1N1 has been documented in the assistant principal and four students.
MARCO UGARTE/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Passengers in Mexico City's subway wear masks to guard against infection April 24, 2009. Health experts advise regular hand washing as another precaution.
WHO warns of 'even stronger' swine flu outbreak
From correspondents in Hong Kong
May 04, 2009 11:52am
THE head of the World Health Organisation has warned that swine flu may re-emerge stronger than ever, even if the current outbreak appears to be declining.
Margaret Chan told Britain's Financial Times that an apparent decline in mortality rates did not mean the pandemic was coming to an end and a second wave may strike "with a vengeance''.
"If it's going to happen, it would be the biggest of all outbreaks the world has faced in the 21st century,'' she said.
"We hope the virus fizzles out, because if it doesn't we are heading for a big outbreak.
"I'm not predicting the pandemic will blow up, but if I miss it and we don't prepare, I fail.
"I'd rather over-prepare than not prepare.''
She said the end of the flu season in the Northern Hemisphere meant any initial outbreak could be milder, but a second wave more lethal.
A total of 18 countries around the world have reported cases of human swine flu, with hardest-hit Mexico confirming 22 deaths in all.
But authorities in Mexico said the epidemic appeared to be levelling off, while in the United States an official at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spoke of "encouraging'' signs.
Ms Chan insisted the WHO was basing its assessment on scientific risk and was not scare-mongering, and defended its global pandemic alert assessment, which officials have said could soon be raised to the maximum level of six.
"All governments are concerned and taking it extremely seriously. It's a tough call,'' she added.
Current Swine Flu Map  Click on Map to Update
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