Influenza AH1N1

1. What is an epidemic?
Occurs when new cases of a certain disease occur in a given human population, during a given period, substantially exceed what is "expected," based on recent experience.
2. What is a pandemic?
Is an epidemic of infectious disease that spreads through populations across a large region; for instance a continent, or even worldwide.
3. What is an infectious disease?
Is a clinically evident disease resulting from the presence of pathogenic microbial agents, including pathogenic viruses, pathogenic bacteria, fungi, protozoa, multicellular parasites, and aberrant proteins known as prions.
4. What is a virus?
Is a sub-microscopic infectious agent that is unable to grow or reproduce outside a host cell. Viruses infect all types of cellular life.
5. What makes the H1N1 virus a "novel" or "new" virus?
That it didn't exist before, it's a new disease that was recently discovered and has been spreading worldwide.
6. How do viruses mutate?
By infecting a cell, so they must be able to evolve faster than their hosts cells. If not, then the host cells would evolve to where a virus would no longer be able to infect. Cells change their surface receptors so viruses cannot attach; the viruses change their surface proteins so they can attach to the changed cell surface receptors. The viruses must always stay ahead of the evolution game.
7. What does it mean that this virus has "parts" from other known swine flus, human flus and American bird flus?
Could combine with the bird flu, which has been circulating for several years and is much more deadly.
8. How does that process happen?
Has spread all the way to the Norhtern Hemisphere, where the bird flu is present, and if the swine flu infectates someone that already has the bird flu, the diseases could combine, forming stonger and more dangerous virus.
9. How is the flu vaccine created?
Is made from inactivated viruses, grown in fertilized hens' eggs. After the shot, the immune system produces antibodies that attack the flu virus when it enters the body.
10. Why are some viruses transmittable from human to human while others are not (avian flu)?
Bird flus recquire few mutations to spread rapidly between mammals by respiratory droplets, so it only transmits with humans that have a direct contact with birds.
11. How does Tamiflu work?
Binding to and inhibiting one of the surface enzymes the virus uses to exit infected cells.
12. Scientists worry that H1N1 might become resistant to Tamiflu. How might that happen?
There are not enough Tamiflus for everyone, we might have to reduce the doses, which could accelerate the emergence of a virus resistant to the drug, and hamper efforts to spread the disease.


Reading Comprehension Questions
1. What is the most predictable thing about influenza?
The nature of the viruses that cause it.
2. How many people have died in Mexico? (based on the article as well as on latest news)
There have been 66 confirmed deaths and more that a thousand cases.
3. Name 3 countries where swine flu has been confirmed in the last three days.
India, Malaysia, and Turkey.
4. What are the symptoms of the swine flu?
Fever, cough, sore throat, and nausea and can range from mild to deadly.
5. When was the outbreak of the Spanish flu?
In 1918, after the World War l.
6. What percentage of the world population died of influenza then?
It killed 50 million people.
7. Why was there an emergency vaccination program in 1976?
Because there was one death and an emergency prevention program vaccinated 40 million people.
8. Name a few actions the Mexican government has done to curb the spread of swine flu.
Schools were closed for a short time, and opened again the 6th of May. Many public places like the movies, and restaurants, where closed indefinitely. Currently, restaurants rae opened with the condition that they'll have to take extreme precautions to conserve hygiene for clients. Churches, theaters, clubs, and bars were also closed temporarily.
9. What were the consequences for Mexico and Mexicans due to the actions taken by the government?
Our tourist economy has suffered the consequences. Especially restaurants, cinemas, clubs, bars, etc.
10. What industries were particularly hard hit?
All the public and touristic places, like hotels, restaurants, museums, fairs, cinemas, etc, because people don't attend and they're suffering an economical crisis.


Discussion Questions:
1. Mexico has shut down schools and other public spaces; do you think that was the correct thing to do? Why or why not?
Yes, because Mexico can't risk that more people could be infected, so it needs that people would not go to public spaces, so the flu, would not spread through many people, and the flu could finish.
2. More people die from the regular flu then from swine flu, why do you think this became a big news story?
Because people got afraid, they didn't know which flu they had, so they went to the hospitals, thinking they had swine flu, when they maybe had a headache.
3. Why did people stop visiting Mexico? Why have Mexicans been discriminated? Do you think the fear of the disease is justified?
They were afraid that if they come to Mexico they will be infected too. Mexicans were discrimminated, because other countries were afraid that someone would infect their people.
4. What questions about individual and human rights does preventing the spread of flu raise?
That this flu, private us from our liberty, we couldn't go out, but it was only a week so the flu wouldn't spread, and we can go out again.