About Mexico City. This is a city with over 22 million people, the largest in the western hemisphere and the second largest in the world. It sits at 7,349 feet above sea level in a high plateau. Due to its geographic location, there is no good air movement across it, and high levels of smog hangs over it; thus its inhabitants suffer from a number of respiratory ailments. So perhaps it is no surprising that swine flu started its spread form this city.
How the across species jump may occur? Fluid to fluid contact is what most scientist suspect; animal handlers that are in daily contact slaughtering animals, get the animals blood splashed on them and if an open cut is present on them, then the animal blood can infect them. Over the years, this kind of interaction may be responsible for the virus jumping to a new host, where it can mutate and become pathogenic to the new host.
Transmission. At this point, the infected human can get sick and transmit the virus via aerosolized micro drops of saliva produced during coughing, and he is also capable of passing the virus by direct contact with non-infected people
About vaccines against it. Currently there are not vaccines against the new swine flu virus strain and producing a vaccine can take 6-9 months. Vaccines against the influenza virus are strain specific, however because the virus has a high rate of mutations in those regions responsible for initiating the infection process there is a need to develop new vaccines every year.
Virulence. The ability for a virus to be more potently infectious; swine flu is intriguing, because it seems that its virulence is of greater power, as compared to other flu’s
About Tamiflu. ; This drug manufactured by Roche appears to be effective against the swine flu; influenza virus initiates the infection process by latching to sialoglycoproteins present of the cell surface via their neuraminidase. Inhibition of the viral neuraminidase interferes with the infection process contributing to reduce symptoms and complications. About the Centers for Disease Control. This is a government backed research outfit slocated in Atlanta, Georgia, whose principal mission is to evaluate , research and advise on any and all infectious agents that afflict not only the continental US but the rest of the world also; as the most serious diseases can become pandemic in nature and affect the entire world.. Their website is: www.cdc.gov
Recommendations. What can one do to lower the odds of contacting swine flu?
- Avoid crowded areas
- Avoid contact with infected peopl
- Wash hands as often as possible
- Avoid captive areas if at all possible, such as planes trains and the like.
A viral peptide responsible for the susceptibility of infected cells to CTLs has been identified. Yet all of the epitopes in the virus responsible for susceptibility to T cell immunity are buried inside the particle and for that reason not available to the action of T cell immunity mediators.
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