California Swine Flu Cases Fuel Pandemic Fears

April 26, 2009 - as of today, 20 cases of swine influenza A (H1N1) virus infection have been identified in the United States. California, Kansas, New York, Ohio and Texas all have confirmed cases of citizens affected with this flu. The first cases of the swine flu broke out in California and Texas just last week. In Mexico, where the swine flu disease originally started March 18th, there have been over 1100 cases with 62 reported deaths. And the number of affected people is growing rapidly.

San Diego County and Imperial County, California have both reported swine flu infections. A 35 year old woman is the latest California case who contracted the swine flu in early April. She was the seventh person affected in California but has since recovered.

California, under the guidance of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, has initiated plans to increase surveillance, testing and response for anyone with swine flu like symptoms. In addition, the CDC sent influenza experts to Southern California to help the local county health departments.

Swine flu is a respiratory disease of pigs. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) the largest pandemic concerns are that human are contracting an animal influenza virus, it is spread over multiple communities, and is abnormally attacking mostly healthy young adults between the ages of 20 to 40. The swine flu viruses’ genes are unique and have not been previously reported in either swine or human. This is also causing a growing concern of a swine flu pandemic as most people do not have a natural antibody for this type of flu. The symptoms of swine flu include fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue. Some people have also reported diarrhea and vomiting. The pandemic concerns are greatest in large congested cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles in California.

The last three flu pandemics that have occurred are:

• 1918 Spanish Flu: It was first identified in the U.S. The 1918 flu affected mostly healthy young adults (similar to the swine flu). It is estimated that about 40 million to 50 million people worldwide died from this flu.
• 1957 Asian Flu: It was first identified in China. There were two waves of illness; the first mostly hit children while the second mostly affected the elderly. About 2 million deaths are attributed to this flu globally.
• 1968 Hong Kong Flu: The most recent and the mildest pandemic. It started in Hong Kong and spread globally over two years. The elderly were the hardest hit and about 1 million are estimated to have been killed by this flu.

A California Emergency Operations Center was opened by California Governor Arnold Schwarzeneggger to work closely with the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in an attempt to prevent a swine flu pandemic from occurring. The CDC’s Emergency Operations Center is being used to co-ordinate investigations. All updates and any new information will be released by the CDC on the swine flu virus as soon as it is available from the on-going investigations.

Author Andee Nast can be reached andeen@charter.net