Articles

...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

SWINE FLU ALERT

Swine Flu, the highly contagious virus spreading across the globe which started affecting mainly in countries like Mexico, US, Canada, Chile, Australia, Japan and UK. Positive swine flu cases have been reported by more than 20 countries which caused by regular out breaks in pigs occur year around. Many countries as a routine always vaccinate swine populations against swine influenza.

How swine flu did come into existence and what is it new about and how it can be controlled, let’s discuss it in detail.

The disease first came to attention by the death of an army recruit who was infected by swine flu. Swine Influenza (Swine Flu) is a respiratory disease of pigs caused by type A of H1N1 subtype. This flue caused by illness and then death, which feared people eventually resulted in precautions to be taken in the most affecting countries. Death has been reported highly in Mexico and slowly in other countries like US, Canada, Chile and Costa Rica.

Symptoms of swine flue in humans are very common like any other viruses affected namely fever and chills, coughing, sore throat, muscle pain, severe headache, and fatigue but apart from these another few symptoms like diarrhea and vomiting, and respiratory (breathing) problems which was reportedly seen in this particular virus.

The swine flue spreads among people very easily through coughing or sneezing from affected people. There are many safety precautions for preventing the strain of swine flue are;

Wash your hands frequently when you are exposed outside or even before and after eating or before preparing food and while in and out of rest rooms (toilet).

Use a tissue before sneezing or coughing and never touch yourselves or anything before washing your hands completely using a good medicated soap and also throw the same tissue to the bin.

Avoid visiting swine (pig) poultries.

Cook pork thoroughly and avoid eating it half cooked. Eating pork wouldn’t affect us since swine influenza virus if affected in the pig which we are consuming will be killed by cooking temperatures of 160_F/70_C.

If any of the symptoms are found extreme in you then immediately visit the doctor and seek medication. Since even before you realize that you are affected with swine flu it gets transmitted to people without our knowledge.

The medications namely Tamiflu or Relenza have shown to be effective against the strain of swine flue and two more anti-viral drugs are used which are commonly treated for various other strains of flue.

Stay healthy and be aware of this new swine influenza!!!

Author - Mary Ramya